This Mess We're In
by Kato Molotov
Summary: [Early S3] They can't seem to let each other go, and they can't seem to move forward, so they keep spinning, all in pursuit of mutual assured destruction.
1. Chapter 1

(Prompt: Beckett shows up for her second go at Castle's annual Halloween party in-costume AND in-character as Nikki Heat. She lets Castle fuck her, but only as long as he calls her Nikki.)

* * *

_City Sun Set Over Me_

* * *

The reek of the temporary dye makes her eyes water, but it's just as well. The tears leak from the corner of her eyes, smudging her eyeliner and mascara, and it completes her look. Just right. Her thick-rimmed eyes, smoky with sex and the tequila she hasn't yet had a chance to knock back, Kate blinks apprehensively back at her reflection in the mirror. Red velvet tendrils fall in ragged curls and scraggly waves around her face. Not orange – not like his daughter, not like his mother, _definitely_ not like his first ex-wife – the color suits her surprisingly well, like a second skin she can slip into just for tonight. Delectable and sultry and too red to be natural, it's just the thing. Just what he needs to see. Just what she needs to be.

Beaten black leather moto jacket, cropped and shredded grey shirt, tight ink-rinse jeans that showcase the legs she knows he spends an inordinate amount of time staring at when he thinks she's not looking, and lace-up combat boots that she unearthed from the abyss of her closet - a relic of her wilder days – top off the illusion. A little Vice, a little punk rock, a little slutty. A lot of fun. She can be fun. She's still got Rebel Becks in there. Somewhere. She just needs to coax her a little closer to the surface tonight.

He'll never see it coming. She didn't see it coming. Didn't plan it out, not really. She was going to be Elektra. Really, she was. But inspiration struck that morning, when he once again couldn't keep his hands to himself at the precinct, touching her at any excuse. Passing a pen, brushing her neck when he helped her into her jacket, touch, touch, touch, touching all day long. She fumed and knocked off at 4, claiming she needed time to get her costume ready.

And it was true. Only, she didn't need time to get into something red and skimpy and totally impractical for battling supervillains. She needed time to get into costume, get into character.

Strapping her empty Glock 26 and a 'Detective Heat' nameplate into place to complete the look, she banishes the last nagging voice that tells her that this is a bad idea, that it's wrong, that it's not going to end well. She doesn't care. She doesn't want to hear it. One last check into the mirror, she takes a deep breath and looks her alter-ego in the eye defiantly.

It's almost an afterthought that she carefully removes the chain that holds her mother's ring, setting it gingerly on her jewelry box for later, when she can look at it again.

* * *

Alexis answers the door eagerly, her Hogwarts robe billowing behind her when she grabs Kate's hand, dragging her through the surprisingly near-empty loft. Suddenly, without the crowd as a buffer, she feels self-conscious, nervous. Exposed.

"Dad, the cops are here," Alexis calls, the only response a loud clanging from his office. "And this one is _hot._" Good. Alexis gets the joke. (As if that's what this really is – a joke. Oh well. Better his family think so.)

Steampunk Han Solo stumbles out, gaping at her as he struggles to clamp his Victorian-themed weaponry belt into place.

"Beck—" she stops him. Nips it in the bud. She's going to be what she has to be tonight, and it's _not_ Detective Beckett.

"Detective Heat," she says, putting a playful smile to it for Martha and Alexis' benefit, keeping the hard edge of her voice just for him. "Detective Nikki Heat, 20th Precinct Homicide. There's been a crime."

His Adam's apple bobs as he swallows thickly, still practically undressing her with his eyes and staring at her like he's half predator and half prey, caught between the instinct to devour her and the instinct to run from trouble, because she can see it. He just _knows_ – gut reaction - that they're playing a different game tonight. But he doesn't move. Martha and Alexis are still there, watching with apparently amused interest.

She chuckles darkly. If he's undone enough look at her like _that_ with his mother and daughter right there, she can only imagine what he'll do when she gets him alone.

She's counting on it.

"What crime, Detective?" he replies at last, his voice just a little strangled, but his poker face mostly in place again. Good job, Castle; keep up.

"Telling me your party started at seven, for starters," she breaks character and takes in the fully-decorated but empty loft, deciding it might not be a good idea to torture him in front of his family. He's sufficiently distracted. Good. He doesn't seem to know fully what she's up to, and she'd rather keep him guessing until the time is right. Keep him in the dark, then light up his world like Times Square, New Years Eve.

The right corner of his mouth turns up sheepishly, his uncharacteristically unstyled hair flopping roguishly in front of his face and that just isn't helping anything at all because _mmmm_. "I made soup. You can't survive on Reese's cups alone tonight."

"How did you—"

His face splits wide into that irresistible Tom-Sawyer grin, and Alexis giggles. "You just told me. Come on, have dinner with us."

"Katherine, you really should," Martha chimes in. And what can she do besides acquiesce?

She's adaptable. Still doesn't change anything. She's just gotten a little delayed, that's all. Stamping Nikki down for the moment and focusing on being Kate while his family's around, she gives in.

"Oh, what the hell, alright," she says cheerfully, lets Alexis seize her by the hand and pull her over to the counter while Castle dishes out soup, and Martha chats with her like she just belongs there.

* * *

The guests begin filing in at 8 – a delightful mix of pop culture, slutty archetypes, and elaborate period digs - and is in full swing by 10. Everyone who's anyone is there. Castle's made it a grand event, soliciting donations for the NYPD's Widows and Orphans fund while expertly mingling with the men and women who run the city, who dictate the culture, who write the story.

She's one of them tonight. She's going to write the story. Or more precisely, Nikki is.

The music is loud and she has little trouble slipping back into character, allowing a Michael Jackson - Beat It era, naturally, one glove and all - impersonator to pull her onto what's been collectively designated as the dance floor in the middle of the living room.

(Detective Beckett doesn't dance like this. Nikki Heat does.)

The Prince of Pop gets more of a dance than he could have hoped for, and he holds her all wrong and he smells all wrong, like cheap booze and pleather, but she endures. It's all part of the plan. She can't see him, but she knows he's watching.

She can feel his eyes on her. Han Solo has moved through the crowds, polite and social as ever tonight, but his eyes have never left her for very long. Not for Mayor Weldon. Not for Patterson. Not for Harrison-freakin'-Ford, who he even pulled her over to meet, causing her to drop character for just a moment as her inner-fangirl took over and she laughed nervously when the actor asked her who made a better Solo, mischief gleaming in his crinkled eyes. Castle hung on her every word, still didn't look away from her.

Not for _anyone._ Not even for Gina. Not even for Gina dressed as Glinda the Good Witch.

That's the thought that brings a grim smile to her face. It's a rush, knowing she has him so interested, that he desires her not only physically, but that he craves her company, covets her input, wants her around his wealthy and powerful friends, _shows her off._ Almost like he's proud of her. Almost like she's his.

He's teased her for weeks, ever since they found their groove again after the standoff with Kitty Canary.

Even though she's got Josh. Even though he's got Gina.

Hasn't stopped him from teasing, from flirting, from holding her hand when the Triple Killer escaped, from walking too close, from spending all night at the precinct with her even when there's just paperwork, from inviting her into his home for poker or movies and isn't it convenient that Gina is never there when she is? It certainly hasn't stopped him from looking at her like she's his every fantasy come to life on occasion, and given what he writes in his books, she thinks she might be, tonight. If he's a bit sweet on Detective Beckett, having his Nikki Heat dropped in his lap is a dream come true.

If it hasn't stopped him, it's not going to stop her. She intends to make his dreams come true. And hers. Definitely hers. He directs, produces, and stars in her dreams, and she intends to make it come true. Just for tonight. Just a writer and his character, easing the ache, and then Nikki can slip back between the bindings and Detective Beckett can get on with life with this thing out of her system. They can go back to safe Josh and convenient Gina, and the unbearable tension at the precinct will be broken, one way or the next.

Patterson cuts in, dancing nice and respectfully with her, and he moves pretty well for an old guy. That does it. She spies him by the top of his head, brass goggles astride that messy flop of brown hair, inches above whomever he's surrounded himself with. And he's moving her way.

"Stealing my muse, James?" he virtually has to shout to be heard, even from 3 feet away. "Don't you have a computer generator to come up with your own?"

"No need to be jealous, Ricky!" Patterson replies jovially, "too young for the likes of me, though I thank _Detective Heat_ here for humoring an old man."

Patterson steps away to cool down with a margarita and Castle crowds into her in his place. She inhales; drinking in the smell of him, letting him block out everyone else as they dance and he tries to not get inappropriately close to her.

Oh, but she _wants_ inappropriate. He'll figure that out soon enough.

They find a rhythm, his broad frame perfectly complementing her, moving instinctively with her, just an extension of the mind-body collusion they find themselves falling into at work without really trying.

Beckett turns her back to him after snagging a tequila and lime shot from King Kong's tray, knowing the symbolism is not lost on Castle for one single second. She feels his eyes, knows he's watching every movement in the tight curves of her ass and legs, knows he's mentally undressing her, peeling her jeans off her, ripping the laces on the knee-high boots away, for the thousandth time already tonight. Swaying this way and that to some club tune, she meanders through the crowd slowly, so as to not attract attention. He follows every step of the way, and when she sneaks a glance at him, she knows he's into it. Clear blue eyes turned glassed-over and dark gray, mouth stitched into a hard line. His control is not long for the world and she's going to make him lose it.

The edge of the party reaches the closed door to his office, and he makes another error in calculation when he leans back into it, reclining casually as if she's carefully steered him all the way through the mass of writhing bodies occupying every inch of the common areas in the loft just to dance for him.

Detective Beckett takes one last look around the loft, spying Gina in the dining room chatting up the evening news anchor, paying no attention at all to where her ex-husband current-boyfriend has gone to.

Good.

Sidling up to him, she tries desperately not to think. She leaves Kate at the door. Nikki's in charge now.

Yanking the handle down, he stumbles backward as the door opens, and she follows quickly, grabbing his arm to stabilize him as she swings the door shut behind them.

"Hi," she grins.

Castle looks bemused, a little concerned, but still all in for whatever he must think she has in mind for him. He has no idea_,_ as usual. If he's guessed at anything yet, he's not showing it. His poker face may work on his buddies, but not on her. Not on anyone who really knows him.

"Hi?"

His voice is still too loud, having not adjusted for the suddenness of private company, ears probably ringing from the deafening volume of the music. If half the higher ranks of the NYPD weren't here already, she'd not be surprised if the police were called. The benefits of influence, she supposes.

The sultry, sexy, slow burn of a new song covers any noise they might make, the low notes of an electric guitar and a bass sending shivers through the floor, up through her boot-clad feet to settle in the base of her spine, spurring her further, letting her continue to sway just a little, pretend like it's all part of the dance.

"Beckett-"

"Nikki," she corrects sharply, her tone acid, scowling at him and making sure he understands exactly where the line is drawn. She's drawn it, this line in the sand between reality and fantasy and right and wrong and forgivable and unforgivable, and it _won't_ be crossed. Won't. It's already moved, and it's moved a lot, but she's in control and he won't cross her. He _won't_.

"Just Nikki."

* * *

_TBC. I'd love to hear what you all think. If all goes according to plan and what I have outlined, this one will reach around 90-110k words, so it's a long-haul project. The kink meme prompt it started out as a fill for will be wrapped up in the first 3-5 chapters, and after that, it will probably sit idle until kink meme is over, while I finish the longer story. But once I start posting the longer part, the updates should come every other day or so._


	2. Chapter 2

(Prompt: Beckett shows up for her second go at Castle's annual Halloween party in-costume AND in-character as Nikki Heat. She lets Castle fuck her, but only as long as he calls her Nikki.)

* * *

_Can You Hear Them?_

* * *

Castle can't see straight, not once she's turned her back to him, giving him implicit permission – hell, practically commanding him – to stare at her. Not that he needs permission. Not that he doesn't stare at her all day without her permission.

They wander through the crowd, and she pulls him here and there, as if there's some invisible collar around his neck and she's jerking the end of the lead, and doesn't _that_ just provide quite the mental image? He shudders, the right-wrong gratification of it grasping at him.

It's wrong, the way he looks at her. He knows it. But what's one more in his laundry list of sins, when it comes to Kate Beckett? It was wrong to get back together with Gina on the premise of giving himself a neutral zone around Beckett's rejection. It was wrong to stay with Gina all summer on the premise of not wanting to be alone, of having someone to sleep with who couldn't hurt him, whose rejection would just be a repeat of what's already failed once, someone with whom he has next to nothing to lose. It was wrong to stay with Gina when he came back to the precinct even though he couldn't stop himself from watching Beckett, spending time with her, relying on her emotionally, comforting her when she needed him (because she does, she _does_ need him), touching her, thinking about her, fantasizing about her, writing about her.

Oh, writing about her. That's another category of sin altogether, isn't it?

He has his Nikki Heat files, of course. Chapters of casework, chapters of flirting, chapters of Rook and Roach palling around, chapters of white-washed, publisher-friendly (though Gina seldom looks so friendly when she reads them) love scenes.

Then he has his private files. The ones he keeps on a password-protected USB on his keychain, never off his person. The ones he opens up late at night when nothing else can stave off the longing, has to write to get it out of his system. The ones where he has go back in the morning and retroactively change the names to Nikki and Rook. The ones he'd die – just _die – _if anyone else read.

It's _definitely_ wrong that he's dancing with her like this, but if anyone asks, he's just had too much to drink. Which is, of course, a lie. With Beckett and Gina in the same house, he's not taking any chances of losing his control, of saying something that could start a fire. Sipping his one whisky slowly over the hour and faking his loosening demeanor to blend in, he manages to play gracious host all while keeping a hawk's eye on Beckett and making sure the situation doesn't escalate out of control.

Except it's very much out of control now, and he doesn't even want to stop it. He wants to see where it goes. Leaning up against his office door, he drinks the sight of her in shamelessly. He's slightly disconcerted by the realization that all he sees is Kate. He thought seeing his character come to life would be more thrilling. Well, it is thrilling, but it's thrilling because it's Kate. He couldn't give two fucks about the Nikki Heat costume.

As he contemplates the implications of that thought, she gets the jump on him, and before he knows what's happening, he's stumbling backwards, grabbing her outstretched hand for support as she shuts them in his office and flips the lock with a decisive 'click,' barely audible over the din in the common area.

He wonders if she's going to chew him out for staring again. Or continue dancing for him. But she doesn't, though her hips in those sinfully tight jeans never quite stop their slow gyrations. She wants to talk, apparently.

He takes a deep breath. _Okay, Rick – you can do this. You can be alone with her even when she's like this. You can keep it together._

His mantra sounds thin, even to his own ears.

"Hi," she says coquettishly, her voice an octave lower than normal, even lower than it's been all night since she started this Nikki Heat act, and the distinctly un-Beckett-like, smoldering look in her eyes spells danger, threatens to reduce him to ash just looking at her.

"Hi?" Castle has no clue what the right response is here. He's written seductions a hundred times – more than a hundred, if those personal files count – and he recognizes one when it's upon him, but for the life of him he can't come up with any response more intelligent or suave or composed than 'hi.'

It's times like this that remind him painfully that he's no Jameson Rook. Hell, he's only even three quarters of Derrick Storm on a good day. Rook would definitely know how to deal with it when the woman of his dreams (literally) comes on to him in exactly the wrong place, at exactly the wrong time, and how to handle exactly how wrong it is that he's reacting this way.

Taking a shuddering, shallow breath, he tries to get a handle on it, tries to do the right thing.

"Beckett—" and then she cuts him off, stepping closer to him until they're only just not touching.

"Nikki."

Her hazel eyes meet his, pleading and smoldering and insistent and daring, and he can't respond.

"Just Nikki."

And her lips are on his, just like that, just like he's dreamed about. Lime and salt seep through his closed lips from her tongue, probing at him, seeking entrance he's almost willing to give her.

"Mmmf," he struggles to say something, anything, to stop them, stop himself, stop her.

"Shut up," she snarls, using his attempt to speak as a way to force their lips together, their teeth clashing harshly. Whatever he was about to say dissipates into a groan, his control weakening by the moment. She moves insistently against him, kissing over and over, trying to provoke a response, and reluctantly, he lets her in, and immediately regrets it because she tastes incredible and the stroke of her tongue against his, against the ridges of his mouth, is everything he thought it would be, magnified straight off the Richter scale in its intensity. He never expected this, _god,_ he never expected _her_ at all. She never stops surprising him.

He can't decide if it couldn't be better, or couldn't be worse.

Her hands slide up his chest, one creeping around to rest at the nape of his neck, fingers threading into his hair, the other sliding the back of her bony knuckles across his cheek, over the sharp line of his jaw, every featherling touch designed to pluck the strings of his control, to weaken his resolve.

He's tried so hard for so long to control himself when it comes to her. For her. So long. Tried so hard to be strong, to not be that kind of man. But – god help him – he can't. Not any more. Not without her. She was always his reason to stay strong, his reason to be what he did and didn't have to be. And now he doesn't know where to turn. She's asking him to give in. To be weak.

And he is. Weak. Weak for her.

A little more control slips away, seals his own damn fate between their demanding mouths and pressing chests. The last of his best intentions go to hell in her hands, and between their lips they crush the lie.

The first tentative stroke into her mouth, and he moans at the fire, the taste, the all-consuming rightness in the wrong. Her tequila-tinted tongue tangles with his own, hot and eager, and _nothing_ has ever physically felt this good. He's barely kissed her and nothing has felt this good. His hands, thick with nerves and distraction, manage to find their way around her, and he delights in how she shivers when his calloused writers' fingertips skate across her bare midriff, up- up- up- and finally where she wants him, he knows that by the way she cries out.

It's a mark of his abandoned conscience that he grins ferally into her lips at the realization that she's kept that jacket on all night (despite the heat of the loft, occupied by so many bodies) for a good reason. Jamming his other hand up her as she undoes his shirt, never breaking their kiss, his fingers brush the undersides of her breasts, unclothed for easy access, and with satisfaction, he feels her whine, catches it in his throat and swallows it down with every other bit of her he can get.

She _planned_ this. The thought should give him pause. He's sure it will later. He's not ready. She's not ready. But oh, she's so _willing_ and he is too, the circumstances and conditions and inevitable fallout be damned. The knowledge that she came here tonight with such intent, that she was so willing to compromise her integrity, so willing to ask him to compromise his own – that she wants him so badly that it just doesn't matter any more even to the most principled person he's ever met – is a strange and shameful turn on. But it's working. It's working so very, very well.

"Castle," she sighs, and for a moment he's certain she's come to her senses, almost grateful that she has, and dreading it too. But she doesn't stop, doesn't end it. Just shucks her leather jacket, dumping it on the floor, and oh, _that's_ where this is going?

When her deft fingers work at his heavy belt and it drops to the floor with a clang, scattering cogs and little brass and silver fixtures, the gravity of what they're about to do hits home. The emotional disloyalty of the past weeks since his return, especially since the encounter with the Triple Killer when he realized he might be in further than he thought, has been enough to keep him up at night, but this is another thing entirely. Worse, even, than just kissing her – that, they might later be able to excuse by moonlight and Halloween and tequila.

This has no recourse.

"Please," it spills from him before he knows what he's even asking her for. Please, stop? Or please, don't stop? Whatever he's asking, it doesn't stop him from pressing his leg between her thighs, reveling in the way her hips seek him immediately.

She nods and he trusts she's understood what he doesn't.

"Yesssss," she hisses, pushing herself against him roughly.

"Please," he repeats, _begs –_ god, he needs her to stop him, to protect them both from what they want. Wants her so badly, it flares in his abdomen, making him surge against her in return, uncontrolled. "Stop me," he pleads with her, trying to withdraw from her scalding touch, "stop me."

She doesn't. Maybe she can't.

"Shhhh," she soothes instead, covering his hands with her own small ones, guiding them back under her top, back to her bare breasts, before going to work on the remaining buttons of his shirt (and when did he lose his vest?), the feeling of her unbearably soft, cool skin beneath his palm making him forget his resolve a little bit more.

"Don't think about it, Castle," she whispers in his ear, moaning when he lets his thumbs draw circles around her tightened nipples, never quite coming in contact with the sensitive flesh. She talks to him, eases him into it, coaxes him into whatever game she's playing. "Just let go… touch me, Castle. Touch your Nikki."

Now _that's_ confusing. He always thought Nikki was the character with the most life to her, that she was the most closely related to her real-world, living, breathing counterpart. But now, with Beckett bringing her to life? He really doesn't see the resemblance. All he sees is Kate. Kate, playing Nikki. Not Kate inspiring Nikki. Nikki is his. No, not even that. Nikki is Rook's. Kate certainly isn't his. He has… Gina. That's all he has.

He wants to call out for her, call out for Kate. Wants to grind her name out in her ear. But if this is it, if this is the only way they can do this – they shouldn't be doing this at all, but god, does he need it – is to keep to her rules, he'll play along. He'll indulge the illusion, if it means they can just have this one time together. His chest clenches painfully at that thought.

"Nikki," he groans out instead, and it feels all wrong, the bile of duplicity rising in his throat at the sound of it, staved off only by the reward of her kiss.

Her shirt hangs loosely from his arm, his hands still preoccupied, still planted where she told him she wanted them, but she backs up just a foot, a necessity for removing the rest of their clothing, letting the garment drop to the floor. His shirt joins it quickly and he toes his shoes and socks off without really noticing, tries to work at her boots but the damn sexy things won't come off. He straightens and she kneels, making quick work of the laces and dragging down his trousers down on her way up, palming his obvious arousal through the silk of his boxers.

One quick roll of her wrists and his boxers are gone too, erection springing free to rest against his lower abdomen.

Kate – "Nikki" – takes his hands, walking him backwards into his chair, kicking off her jeans on the journey and climbing into his lap, straddling him and leaving him naked and her in only her panties. Guiding one of his hands back to her breast – "touch me," she commands, and he does – and one down to the apex of her thighs, she molds his palm to cup her. Castle can't do anything but groan, press two fingers to her, finding her wet already. Feel her juices seeping through that bad-girl-Becks black lace.

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. He's not coming back from this. Neither of them are.

Giving in, he explores her while she rides his thigh, eyes closed in pleasure. He can't get enough, needs to commit every inch of her skin to memory, capture every still-frame of the revolution in her expressions, the ebb and flow of her movements. Bottle those little sounds she's making, barely audible over the noise of the party. If this is the last time – the only time, he thinks mournfully - he needs to savor it, to remember. To make it count.

"Castle!" she cries out when his lips wrap around her breast, tongue swirling over her sensitive flesh, making him grin around it. They're already too far in to stop. Why not enjoy it?

Pushing up on her legs while Castle holds her nipple between his teeth, she pulls her panties to the side without elaboration, lines him up, and sinks down, taking him in one rough stroke.

"Fuck," she pants, and he stills, the feeling of being inside her shutting down every last neuron in his brain, then firing them all off at once, fourth-of-fucking-July behind his eyes, framing the vision of the woman sitting astride him, staring into him, so turned on, so scared, so _Kate._

"Nikki," he's learning. He can't say her name. He can't say nothing. So Nikki it is. "Nikki."

She moves jerkily, as if it's causing her a great deal of effort, her chest heaving, and he senses her discomfort. When she bites her lips and turns her eyes away, he knows for sure something is wrong.

Did she want to be called Kate now? Did she not like it?

"Did I say—" she shakes her head.

"No," she gasps, "no, you're..." Kate punctuates it with a sloppy, rough kiss. "I'm just… fuck, I should have prepared—"

Castle at last understands, his heart clenching for this extraordinary woman in his arms. This isn't how their first time should be – their only time, she's going to leave, he knows – and he hates it, hates causing her pain. Time to take charge.

Gripping her hips, Castle lifts her up gently, off him, and she sighs with disappointment at the loss, at the relief.

"I'm so sorry, Castle," she presses her cheek to his, hiding her face, and there's nothing he could think of worse than this, than having her hide from him, being ashamed of stopping when she's clearly hurting. Didn't she know?

"You –" he takes her chin in his hand, forcing her to face him, forcing her eyes to meet his, "- have nothing to be sorry for."

It's a lie, in the strictest sense. This whole thing is one thing to be sorry for, for both of them, but not for _this._ Never for this.

"You never, ever apologize for stopping," he breathes, "you're perfect. If we're doing this, you're damn well going to enjoy it."

Picking her up is surprisingly easy, once he's swung her legs to one side. Gone is his tigress of earlier, stalking her quarry and calculating just the right moment to pounce. Rather, she's compliant – not a trait he's ever associated with Beckett, but then again, neither was deliberate seductress – and tranquil, blinking up at him placidly. He relishes the feeling, commits it to memory as best he can, the feeling of her, soft and vulnerable in his arms. Trusting him. Trusting that he'll take care of her.

He murmurs it into her hair, ignoring the all-wrong smell of dye-not-cherries, passes another lie to her, for she's not his to take care of in the first place.

"I'll take care of you," he swears, moving slowly so as to avoid dropping or jostling her. "I'll take care of you, Kate."

She stiffens suddenly, struggling in his arms halfway between the desk and his bed in the adjoining room, and fuck he just knows he's going to drop her or she's going to hit him, but he manages to plant his feet and lock his knees enough to steady himself, and she slowly stops fighting.

"Nikki," he corrects himself mournfully. "Nikki."

Muscle by muscle, she relaxes again, and he feels safe to move, carrying her the rest of the way and grateful she hasn't insisted he put her down because he can't, not yet. Laying her across his downturned sheets, linen pill-white in contrast to the dark duvet coverings and masculine accouterments of his bedroom, he revels in just being allowed to hold her for a moment. It's all he's wanted for so long. And it's not nearly enough.

Castle doesn't know how much leeway he has now, not with this new, mercurial 'Nikki' part of her in his life, but he takes a chance and kisses her again, slow and sweet, pouring everything he's not allowed to say into it. She responds in kind, slithering into his arms, wriggling underneath him, trying to get as close to him as possible, which is certainly new.

He rids her of her panties, dragging them down those sinful stilts she calls legs, while she relaxes into his kiss, tongues slowly exploring, nothing like the urgent, punishing, shut-up-Castle kisses of just a short time ago.

"I want to taste you, Nikki," he purrs into her ear as she suckles on his neck, "let me taste you."

It's not a question, but it's not a command either, allowing him a measure of control – a thin illusion at best, his more rational side supplies; he's rarely in control of anything when it comes to them – but giving her an out too, if she needs it.

Tentatively, she nods, sighing when his fingers begin working at her, stroking just her inner thighs first, then parting her swollen folds, marveling at how wet she is. Inspiration strikes, and he laces the thick fingers of his left hand with the bony ones of her right, guiding their joined digits to the apex of her thighs, trying to ignore the tremors they seem to pass to each other. Letting her show him how to touch her, letting her lead, she relaxes fully again, settling on a faster rhythm than he would have predicted, circling and pressing and she stops guiding him, moaning as he picks up where she left off, and just like that she's back into it again, letting out little vocalizations and at last he slides down her body, looking in her clouded eyes for approval.

"Taste me, Castle," she pleads, and finally he's doing something right, because her free hand threads into his hair, short fingernails scratching lightly at the nape of his neck in a way that sends shivers all the way down his body.

He's wanted to do this, more than fucking her even, since they day she walked into his life and painted him red and black and NYPD blue. Since she brought Nikki to him. He's wanted to taste her most of all, and plunging his tongue into her, he knows he's ruined for life. Nothing will ever measure up. Tangy and just a little sweet and bright on his palate, he licks a thick stripe up her, delves straight back into her sopping heat, lapping at her, penetrating her tight heat with his tongue, savoring every second of her that he can, all with the wretched knowledge that it will be over sooner or later, probably sooner.

"Mmm, Castle!" she gasps, and he seals his lips around her and sucks on the sensitive bundle of nerves, running the tip of his tongue over the engorged nub, delighting in making her bite her lip and thrash. So sensitive. So responsive, and how can she be so undone, just from this? He wonders if she's this way every time. He'll never know.

Kate writhes in pleasure, fingers carding through his thick, messy locks, singing out her unique melody of breathy whines and sighs and high-pitched little screams she's only just suppressing.

She quakes and quivers, skin and muscles jumping like a livewire as her breath comes in short, sharp pants, and she's so close, he feels it. He _needs it,_ needs to see her fall apart, once – no, at least twice, the animalistic part of him determines; she's not going to leave this room on steady legs. She wouldn't leave it at all for a week, if he had his way, but life isn't fair. Meeting her eyes in the throes of passion is a marvel, a reel he'll never tire of replaying in his mind once it's over, but it's not over, it's not.

She shatters, ripping her fingers from his own and jamming the heel of her hand to her mouth, biting down hard, and he thrusts two fingers into her grasping heat, giving her no time to recover. She's the hottest thing he's ever seen, so wild and so hard to tame, a tigress turned kitten beneath his greedy mouth and questing fingers.

"Please!" she whines hoarsely, "Please – inside - please, Castle, please, I-" he twists his fingers, crooking them in just the right way while sucking her clit and he wants to comply, needs to, needs to join them again, one more time, but he just…

Kate sinks her teeth into her hand again – _that's_ what those bruises he sees occasionally are? – and successfully keeps herself from screeching as she crests again, never having come down from her first, shaking when he abandons her oversensitive flesh.

He needs to come, can't hold out much longer, amazed he's held off this long, his dream woman splayed out across his bed, open and willing and completely undone, and he's never seen anything like it.

Never will again.

The thought is devastating, but he can't dwell on it. Can't spoil this memory can't taint it with sadness. Not yet.

"Please, Castle," she repeats again, and he can't get over Katherine Beckett, _begging_ him for anything, "now, please. Rough, Castle. I want it rough."

Her voice is small and nervous, as if fearful the request will end this. He won't deny it, the idea bothers him. But she wants rough, and honestly, he's not sure he's capable of anything else at this point.

Lining himself up, he drags his swollen head through her, once, twice, before thrusting into the willing body beneath him, tight and hot but relaxed and wanting now, and his eyes slam shut at the delectable sensation. She grasps around him, spasming, and she's moving against him, her pebbled nipples sliding against his slick chest, rolling her hips up into him on every stroke, until she turns her head away.

She won't look at him.

Fine.

If she won't look at him, he's not going to look at her, either.

She _did_ want rough, after all.

Pulling out of her, he flips her over on her stomach before she has a chance to respond, her body pliable from his earlier work. He closes his hands around her hips, bruising in the intensity of his grip, but until she tells him to stop, he doesn't care. Shoving into her once more, a cry of pleasure is his cue to keep going.

Castle sets a punishing pace, allowing one hand to wander from her hip to palm her breast, kneading roughly, rolling her nipple harshly between his fingers. He holds her still, won't let her move, even though he can feel her jumping underneath him, desperate to writhe and participate.

"Fuck, so good," he groans, "so good…" He can't call her Nikki. He can't.

"Nikki." (He does anyway, because it's what she wants.)

She's close again, so close, and so is he. Needs to come. Needs to make it last… the last time. Can't be the last time. Won't. He won't let it.

But he can't last forever, not like this, not with her thrashing in the limited range of movement he's allowing her, not with her gripping around him like this, not with her so wet and hot and perfect and wrong, her midnight voice gasping out nonsense into the void, now that her hands are too preoccupied holding her up to bite them.

Thrusts growing ragged, he angles himself to scrape against her front wall, sets a deep grind of a rhythm, rough as ever, but slow. His groan comes out growling and low, dark and deep as the path they're running down, spinning deliriously around and becoming hopelessly lost in the woods while they're at it. His balls tighten, leg muscles contract, and she keens and screams behind her bitten lips, gripping him like a fiery vice, coming all around him spurring his own orgasm as he grips her, holds her to his chest, holds her against the rapid tattoo of his heart, knowing she can feel it in her lean-muscled back, as he explodes inside her willing body.

"Oh god, Castle, fuck, yessssss," she cries, his thrusts slowing to a jerky, uncoordinated grind before she collapses and he follows, unable to hold himself up any more. He has just enough energy to wrap his arms around her, surround her completely. One final effort is all it takes to roll to his side, taking her limp and tremulous body with him, his softening, spent cock still inside her as they lay together and breathe.

It's not until he ghosts his lips across her neck as he spoons her to him that she comes back to herself.

"I'm sorry," she whimpers sorrowfully, withdrawing from his embrace, regret filling every horrid note. And that's the worst thing of all.

"Okay," he replies dispassionately.

It's not.

* * *

_I implore you to head over to my AO3 account (link in profile) to continue watching this story, as it may well get deleted off here._

_Two more chapters for the prompt fill, then this will go completely off the res. Would love to hear what you all think - comments, questions, concerns, complaints and constructive criticisms are all very much appreciated._


	3. Chapter 3

(Prompt: Beckett shows up for her second go at Castle's annual Halloween party in-costume AND in-character as Nikki Heat. She lets Castle fuck her, but only as long as he calls her Nikki.)

* * *

_The Helicopters_

* * *

Kate stutters and stumbles back into the fray on unsteady legs, shell-shocked and shaken from what she's just done, from the partnership she's just ruined, from the path she's just set them on.

A collective laugh from the crowd is her cue, and she slips back in unnoticed, hoping Castle will use the sense she knows he has in there somewhere (though it's looking nearly as underused as hers tonight) and wait a few minutes, allow her to blend back into the party and recover her equilibrium.

Martha accosts her almost immediately.

"Katherine!" the actress sing-songs and Kate jumps, "I've been looking for you! Over here, darling; somebody wants to meet _the_ Nikki Heat!"

_Shit. Shit shit shit._ Who wants to see her? How long were they missing? If Martha was looking for her, surely someone's been looking for Castle, realized he's gone? _Shit._

Martha hovers over her and pulls her here and there, zooming through the increasingly-unruly crowd. Luckily, it's just Jenny who wants to see her. She and Ryan arrived late, and Jenny – having charmed Martha immediately – has been dying to see the get-up.

If that doesn't make her feel corrupt, nothing does.

Sweet, wholesome Jenny, who just wants to see this character in person. Put a face to the based-loosely-on-real-life detective in the books she just _absolutely loves._ She probably wouldn't if she knew what Nikki Heat was up to outside the page, when she's busy writing the how-to manual on fucking up a good thing and completely losing one's own moral compass.

Bet she wouldn't be so eager if she knew just how close character and writer, creator and creation were, right under their noses, one room away. If she knew about how his come was seeping out of her, into her already soaked panties. How the memory of his hands on her hips and waist will leave marks. Marks she won't bother hiding, knowing Josh won't see them over the phone when he calls from Laos or Cambodia or wherever the fuck he is this week. By the time he gets back, the bruises will be a distant memory. Just a memory. Of how she screwed up, about how he tried so hard to be the voice of reason, of how she preyed on her partner and turned them into something cheap and crude.

Of how sinfully, terribly, exquisitely _good_ it was anyway.

"Detective Beckett-Heat!" Montgomery-the-Hobo booms, alcohol making him jollier than usual, "haven't seen you all night!"

"Captain," she greets and smiles automatically, making small talk with the Captain and his buddies, and could this get any worse?

"Why, hello, Detective," a high voice simpers behind her.

She _had_ to wonder if it could get worse.

"Gina, you look lovely," she spins on her heel, facing the White Witch.

"You too," Gina says politely, but wholly without sincerity, "all you need is a Dead Presidents t-shirt and you'd be the perfect little roadie."

"Dead Kennedys," Kate corrects without thinking. "It's Dead Kennedys."

It's beside the point but it's enough to piss Good-Witch-Gina off enough to make her move her conversation elsewhere.

Making the rounds and engaging random strangers and friends alike in smalltalk, she manages to avoid bumping into Castle. He emerged some time after she did – she mentally praises him for it – and he won't look at her, sticking to Alexis' company, only occasionally jumping over to Ryan and Jenny, then right back to the company of his daughter. To any casual observer, it's sweet enough, maybe a little overprotective, as he can be. She knows better. He's using Alexis as a buffer, probably just as much against Gina as anything. He provided that interesting morsel of information, apropos of nothing, a week after his return to the precinct – telling her (lamenting, really, though why he came to her for sympathy, she'll never know) that his ex-wife and daughter seldom willingly associate with one another, despite pale efforts on either side to get along. He had the nerve to complain to her about it and she'd made him spend the afternoon in the evidence locker for it.

(She felt just the smallest amount of vindication at the time. _She_ got along just fine with Alexis.)

She might have told him, then. When he wouldn't shut the fuck up about how much his ex-wife had annoyed him over the summer. She should have stopped him and told him what they could have had, if not for bad timing and cowardice. She should have told him before he left, stopped him, told him she wanted to go away with him, even with his ex-wife right there. Seen what his reaction might have been.

She should have jumped at it when he first asked – how long could they have had, if she did? Or, how quickly would he have gotten sick of her, she wonders. How much Nikki Heat would he see in her, and then when he could find no more, would he have already moved on?

She's no Nikki Heat. Nikki wouldn't stick with a man she'd never really love (which is entirely the point of easy, safe, saving-the-world Josh) in fear of loving and losing the one she could. Nikki would dive in, like she did with Rook. Nikki would face the future, brazen and brash, a thing unafraid. Nikki wouldn't cower in the dark, too afraid to fail to even try to fly. Nikki would recover from anything, knocked down 99 times, only to get up 100. Nikki would scrape and survive.

But she's just Kate, and Kate doesn't have it in her. She'd never recover from a heartbreak like the one Castle would invariably bring to her, once he got tired, once he needed someone a little more Nikki Heat and a little less burdened with Detective Beckett's problems. She'd never survive him leaving her. Never survive knowing what loving Richard Castle could be like, and losing it.

So she won't. She'll let him push her and Nikki out all in one fell swoop, let their relationship die in the only place it's ever really lived, between the covers of his books.

He won't get to hurt her. Much.

* * *

The guests slowly make their way home starting at 1, and by 3, the loft is quiet and intimate, with only the precinct family – and for some reason, LT – remaining. Alexis has left for a friend's, Martha… well, she doesn't even want to know. Every time Kate tries to leave, someone else ropes her back into conversation, so she stays planted to her spot, as far away from Castle as the dining room table they've congregated around will allow.

Gina made a bit of a scene an hour prior, one that ended in her stomping off, and Castle had simply behaved as if this were par for the course, while Espo and Ryan exchanged nervous looks and Jenny and Lanie and Kate looked anywhere but at the blonde, trying to pretend they didn't see it.

"There's no way," Esposito drawls lazily, liquor dimming his usual brusque tones, slowing them into something sloppier and more cheerful, "that we're going to get off without a case tomorrow. Today. I'll see you suckers in the mornings."

Turning to the M.E., who is slumped sleepily against the table, next to Kate, Esposito offers her a hand.

"Lanie, you heading back too?" he asks hopefully. Meeting Castle's eyes for the first time since they… well, the weary smile he offers her says he knows what's going on with Lanie and Espo – how much more transparent can they get, and do they think anyone's buying it? – and is content to just let them be. For now.

"I'm going to cut out too," Beckett says, getting up gingerly. The soreness in all the right places reminds her with every movement. Castle nods, croaks out a 'see you', and turns away, busying himself with getting Montgomery a glass of water and talking with the Captain about something or other. Right. Conversation over.

Crossing the living room, she realizes she's lost something.

Her "Detective Heat" name badge.

Fuck. She remembers her jacket coming off in the office, falling to the floor with his belt. It must have fallen off there. Glancing to her remaining team, they're all seeing Espo and Lanie off… they're all distracted.

How hard would it be?

She slips away into the author's sanctum, invading his space a second time. Hands and knees, she crawls around the floor, searching for the lost accessory, the carelessly-left clue, the damning evidence quite unbecoming of a detective – fictional or otherwise.

It's in the worst possible place, of course: right underneath his chair. Her cheeks flame hot with the memory of how she shut herself down, let the guise of Nikki take over, take him. Of her quest to drag him down with her, one step right after the other down the garden path, into the woods. Turning around and around, losing their way. It's the biggest mistake she's ever made.

Now, how's she going to get out of this? Listening carefully, it appears that Ryan and Jenny have left, and she hears no sign of LT, though his reticent nature lends enough doubt that she wouldn't bet on her path being clear. Even then, she still hears the faint molasses of the Captain's voice, alternating rumbles of conversation with Castle, both too low for her to make out distinct words.

Considering her options, she finds that none of them are good, and at last, Kate comes to the conclusion that she is trapped.

Castle runs a hand through his hopelessly-mussed hair, breathing heavily and letting out a deep sigh he's been holding for hours. She observes him from her hiding place as he heaves himself into his chair – the one they'd so grossly abused hours before – and takes a swig of something from a bottle hidden in his desk. Shaking his head as the liquid slides down his throat, he slouches over, smaller than she's ever seen him, burying his somnolent face in his hands, running his hands over his features as if to iron lines from a wrinkled paper. Crushed. The picture of brokenness.

Her fault. She's a liar. A cheat.

And all she wants to do is keep going. In for a penny, right? She wanted him the first time, wanted to know what he could do to her, wanted to see if he could live up to all those innuendos, the cocky hints he drops, the completely unsubtle insinuations that wore down her resolve grain by grain, endless waves against a weary breakwater.

It's after midnight, but the night only ends at midnight for Cinderella. She's still got the boots and the jacket and the nameplate, and it's still dark. It's still tonight.

Maybe they can survive this. Maybe he's stronger than she thinks – he's always proven so in the past. And yet, she keeps on underestimating him. She wonders if that says more about him, or more about her; if it's for her benefit, or his. Maybe he can be the strong one, protect them both from what they want.

After tonight. Let him be strong after tonight.

Let him come to his senses and pull them both from the river when she's not Nikki and can't be his fantasy come to life – can't pretend to be everything that Nikki is and he wants and she isn't. Maybe then, he can bring them back and maybe when she comes back to Just Kate, she can still be good enough to be friends or whatever they are now.

Assuming he still wants even that. She hopes he does. He clearly likes playing cop, and it's felt less and less like play lately. She rolls her eyes and snaps at him as always when he forgets he's not a real cop, but the dangerous part is, she forgets too.

He squirms in his chair, slumped over as if his spine has turned to salt and crumbled beneath him, as he mutters to himself.

"What a mess. Good job, Ricky."

Watching his private breakdown feels invasive (it _is_ invasive), like catching a priest in the nude, something she shouldn't be allowed to see, proof of his fallible nature, just like her. Just as dirty and wrong and confused.

So many lives expanded and used and changed, built up and torn down all in the space of one night. What a mess, indeed.

Concealed by the bookshelf-wall, Kate observes him. Studies him until her eyes grow heavy and she toes one boot after the other off, and she feels the world go out.

* * *

A generous swig of whisky and an hour of abject self-loathing later, Castle staggers off to his bedroom, heaving the costume off with unnecessary viciousness. He doesn't bother with his pajamas, just yanks on a clean pair of boxers before brushing his teeth and returning to his bed.

It's only as he turns down the dark coverlet that he notices it. A sleeping figure on the far side of the bed, nearly invisible if not for the shock of red hair, wilder than he's ever seen it in its waves and rollercoaster spirals, the frizzy patches untouched by dye framing her face.

_Oh, no._

He can't very well kick her out. Can't. Won't. She looks so small there, curled up in a ball. So… pure. Her face childlike and unconcerned in sleep, her form so lacking in her usual kick-ass-take-names posture. She's sweet, vulnerable. The thought is incongruous with her earlier demeanor, but it's all her. Even if she won't admit it, it's all her. Now she's just Kate. His razor-sharp, troubled, dedicated, extraordinary, difficult partner. His friend. He wants so much more. So much.

But she doesn't. And he's not going to try to make her. If this is what she can give right now, fuck it all, he'll take it and thank her for it like the fool he is.

A fool for her.

Climbing in bed, the shift of his weight on the mattress wakes her.

"Castle…" her voice is her own now, though clouded by sleep, and he breathes a sigh of relief that he's once again dealing with Kate, not Nikki, and she's inexplicably still here and maybe he can pretend she's already his for a few more hours.

"Hey," he murmurs quietly, the hush in his tone seeming to calm her, dim the panic in her face, the fear of being caught vulnerable and unaware. She doesn't run. Good. She's not going to run. He's not going to let her. Not yet.

Kate hesitates, waiting on him to make the next move. Wrapping his arms around her, he indulges in a private, grim smile as she gives a feeble effort at a struggle. What did she think was going to happen? Did she think that act actually fooled him? She turns up in his bed after fucking his brains out a few hours ago, and she expects him to keep his hands to himself?

Fuck that. They both know she could get out if she really wanted to, which means the fight is all for show, for her benefit, a theatrical element to this story she needs to tell herself to make it all okay.

Eventually, she gives up and relaxes in his embrace, giving one last _huff_ to make her alleged displeasure known. Allowing his palm to settle against her waist and hip, he drums his fingers across her skin, relishing the begrudging permission to touch, soaking in the memories as much as he can.

The morning and the mourning will come too soon. He can't let go yet. He won't let her go forever, not without a fight.

His weak sham of a relationship with Gina is over, he knows that much. She was dead in the water the moment he returned to the 12th. The act had been on life support anyway, and it was more than time to do the humane thing and pull the plug. Even if Beckett hadn't… no, he can't put all the blame on her. Even if _they_ hadn't done this tonight, he knew it was done for with Gina. He just needed the push and if what happened earlier wasn't a push, he doesn't know what is.

Now to get rid of this odd Nikki Heat front. Castle recognizes that may be more difficult. She doesn't want to risk herself yet, doesn't want to deal with reality yet. He's content to wait, if he can have at least this little part of her. He'll be patient. He'll play the long game, let her come around to him in her own time. He'll even call her Nikki, if that's how she can cope. But he'll have her. Right start or wrong, he will have her and she will have him too. He doesn't worry about Josh. Once she's able to reconcile Nikki and Kate, Josh's departure will be a naturally – if unpleasant – foregone conclusion. He hopes.

Burying his nose into the back of her neck, he inhales, finding strange solace in the knowledge that her normal scent still lingers there, cherries and herbal antiseptic and the dusky comfort of the precinct. She squirms again.

"Stop," Castle grumbles lazily, his hold tightening, "you're not going anywhere."

He expects another escape attempt, braces himself for it, but her only movement is to twist in his arms, bringing her chest to chest, cheek to cheek with him, her heart regulating the shallow beat of his own.

"Okay," she snuggles close.

And it is. For now, it is.

* * *

_Apologies that this is so late and that this chapter feels so disjointed. Started a new job and have been too tired to type up what I have written. Once again, head over to AO3 if this gets axed off ._

_Please let me know what you think. All feedback is very much appreciated._


	4. Chapter 4

_I'm in New York_

* * *

She hums tunelessly in her sleepy haze, slowly swimming back to the surface, and he greets her with a kiss to the temple that doesn't seem to register over the dark aroma of the coffee he has sitting at the side of the bed, which is more likely the cause of her stirring than anything else. Mumbling and twitching in her sleep, he realizes she must be stuck in a dream, and suddenly his boxers are tight because she's shifting under him, grinding back against him, wriggling and pressing and making these fascinating little noises, ones he could spend a lifetime decoding.

"Castle," she mumbles, small and needy and thick with the remnants of whatever dream she's chasing.

"Right here," Castle chances as he hovers over her, needing her awake, "right here."

"Hmm," slowly, the twitching in her limbs ceases, and her over-large eyes blink up at him as the sleep clears out, leaving the storm to remain and call to him.

It's a gamble, but what about the last twelve hours hasn't been? Sitting up, he gives her a cautious smile around his mug, passing hers over, and it seems to have been the correct move. She takes it without thinking, eyes never leaving his, like she can't quite figure out why she's here and the coffee is her anchor to everything normal and real.

Her eyes slide closed again at the first sip and some of the tension eases out of her, and he thinks maybe she's still not Beckett because she hasn't swerved into any of the variety of emotions he's come to expect from her when faced with a situation she cannot control or does not understand: anger, panic, despondency, cynicism or disdain. Instead, she stretches her arms out in front of her like a lazy cat, flexes, tests out her limbs and takes inventory, but makes no move to escape. Or murder him. It's cause for cautious optimism.

"Good morning," she remarks primly, if still tiredly.

"Good morning," he wants to add, 'Kate,' but he also doesn't want to send her running out the door, and since Kate was most definitely not on the menu (though he did get a taste anyway and _oh,_ that thought is one he will be revisiting over and over again) last night, he elects to not press his luck yet. She's too easy to spook and he's too eager for her company.

Quite uncertain of what to do with this version of the woman he's known for over two years now, he waits for her next move, but finds her staring back at him expectantly, as if looking for direction. This is certainly new. At the precinct it's always, 'Castle, no!', 'Castle, do this!,' or 'Stay there, Castle!' Outside the precinct, at least in the last few hours, she's considerably more… amenable? It's not a description he's ever credibly applied to her, but he can't figure out what else to call it. She was all too willing to let him take control the previous night, even let him pull her close and _tell her_ not to leave. That's not to say that she wasn't an active and enthusiastic participant – she initiated it, after all – and didn't make her preferences known, but she was so docile. So… un-Beckettish.

There's no question that he wants her (again, and again, and again). He has since the day they met, though his desire has changed considerably.

As they sip their coffees in silence and trade playfully distrusting glances at each other, as if they're at the precinct over a casefile rather than both half naked in his bed after cheating on their respective boyfriend and girlfriend-ex-wife with each other, he considers his first fantasy about her.

The first night, he went home, wrote the first chapter of Heat Wave, and couldn't get to sleep until he brought himself off thinking about tying the sharp little detective up. He played it out in his mind: putting her in her own handcuffs, making her submit to him, making her scream over and over until she was gooey and yielding and would do whatever he wanted, would tell him anything he wanted to know. He dreamed every night for weeks about it, about how she'd eventually give in, about how he'd show her how good it could be and make her wonder why she ever resisted, until he showed her she could call the shots at the precinct but that he'd have her everywhere else and he'd be in charge.

Somewhere along the line, the fantasy changed.

Oh, he still thinks about tying her up. A lot. It still features prominently in his dreams, his fantasies, and in the private writings he churns out when he can't find relief any other way. But beyond the basic framework, the more recent incarnations bear little resemblance to the rough draft.

The cold police cuffs he wanted to use against her have turned to soft scarves or playful leather cuffs. Almost imperceptibly, the dialog has mutated too. The lust-driven words he imagined saying and hearing have shifted word by word to affirmations of trust, of willingness, of affection and finally and maybe forever. He wants to tie her up as badly as ever, to see her submit, but he wants to earn it, to deserve it, to inspire her trust and approbation so deeply that she doesn't even hesitate to give to him what he once wished to take.

Was it really just hours ago that he thought perhaps, with Gina and Josh out of the way as he hoped they eventually would be, that they may be on that path? That he was earning her trust again as her partner and her friend, after whatever went so wrong at the beginning of the summer was behind them? He's worked harder than he ever has at anything, trying to deserve her approval and regard, trying to be smart enough, knowledgeable enough to be of genuine use to her at work. And he has. They've just settled back into this comfortable thing at the precinct, the tenuous friendship beyond it. She even held his hand when that fucking psychopath escaped his grasp, praised his cleverness at getting himself and Ryan rescued instead of berating him for losing the dirtbag in the process.

Now… now he doesn't know where they stand any more. She probably doesn't either. Reasonable assumption: that's why she hasn't come to herself and run yet.

"I'm on call," she says conversationally. "Providing a body doesn't drop, we don't have to go in…"

The words are all Beckett, but the tone is the same throaty Nikki Heat one he heard last night, and he doesn't know what he's dealing with. It's as if she's locked her normal persona in a box and labeled it _Kate,_ and that's the only way she can let this other side of her out. It's troubling. Deeply troubling, and definitely not what he wants to see. There's something wrong about her demeanor, something so checked-out that it turns his stomach the more he looks at it, looks for his friend and partner and almost-lover and doesn't find her. It doesn't bode well for any kind of future if it's kept up.

He thought he could play along with this Nikki Heat act – call it roleplay, perhaps – if she was still transparently Beckett, the way she was when she jumped him in his office the night before. But this is something entirely new and wrong on top of wrong. This isn't his Beckett. It's a shadow with Beckett's face.

He needs her back before they do anything.

"Kate," he insists, and watches her flinch, but she's not running yet, "we need to talk about this."

To his surprise, she nods.

"Yes. But not now," she replies. "Let's just enjoy our morning before the body drops and we have to haul out."

There's a bit of Beckett in that. Not enough, she's not nearly sensible and snappy and snarky enough to be herself. But it's a start, and he can work with a shard of Beckett if he has to.

"We'll enjoy our morning later," Castle insists, drawing on his reserve of patience and resolve that apparently abandoned him the night before. "Right now, talk."

He waits patiently as she picks at a thread on her shirt, looking anywhere but his eyes.

"I get it, we can't do that again," she states and it's another punch to the gut, "I'm sorry I dragged you into this, I don't-" she draws a rattling, shaky breath "- I don't know what came over me. I just wanted the tension gone."

He doesn't buy it, doesn't want to believe it.

"And how's that working out?" Castle asks, watching her closely to delineate Kate from Nikki because it seems like that's going to be a thing for a while at least, watching her fire stoke back into life and she's all Kate for a moment as she rises to his bait.

"If you'd just stop _touching_ me all the time!"

Castle snickers. Gotcha, Beckett. "I touch you? You're the one who can't keep your hands to yourself, _Beckett,"_ and excellent, she's too riled up to object, "stroking my ear, playing with my hair, holding hands in the car."

"You're deranged," she bites out, though there's a hint of a smile cracking through, "you mean pulling your ear, slapping your head and stopping you from playing Starsky and Hutch with the police scanner in the car?"

"Any excuse to get your hands on me, Beckett."

She makes a noise of frustration, a curious combination of a sigh and a suppressed scream, and he presses his luck. Rising from the bed and setting his nearly-empty coffee aside, he offers her a hand.

"Shower. In the interest of the environment and time constraints, I suggest we collaborate. I'll give you a few minutes…"

Fortune favors the bold, for once, and she considers him with an expression that says she's going to hit him (an empty threat - if she was ever going to really hit him, it would have been years ago when he was still more jackass than smartass) before replying.

"Fine."

Oh, it's more than fine. It's way more than fine. He watches her swing those stilts off the edge of his bed and rise _very _carefully, relying on him to steady her before padding off into the attached en-suite as he stares after her, loving the way her legs look, bare and slightly less steady than her usual gait. He's never been happier to have her snap at him, to see her stomp away from him like she always does, just this time, she's stomping straight into his shower. When he hears the water switch on, he thinks he might just have her. Right start or wrong, he _will_ have her and he'll slowly bring her back to Beckett and this whole Nikki episode will be a distant memory.

* * *

Once finished cleaning up in the upstairs bath, Castle gives Beckett a few more minutes alone while he checks his phone.

7 new messages.

Alexis: staying at a friend's. Check.  
Mother: sleeping it off in her studio and off to scavenge the post-Halloween costume sales for the school's wardrobe department. Check.

Remaining messages?  
Gina. Gina. Espo. Gina. Gina.

Fuck. It's only 9:30 too.

Scanning through the texts, he doesn't know whether to be relieved or more concerned that they all basically say "where are you?" and "call me."

They're no different from her usual messages. Personal or business, she is brief and commanding. It's a quality he liked about her once upon a time.

It's not that he dislikes her at all. He wouldn't have stayed married to her for 6 years if he didn't get along well with her, however twisted their version of "getting along" is. It works. It's… acceptable. Sometimes, it's even pleasant. But it's always been acceptable.

Not any more. He's unacceptable. She doesn't deserve what he's done to her, not now and not since they've been back together, frankly. Sure, last night was the physical betrayal, but how long has it been emotional?

She deserves better, ex-wife and annoying publisher or not.

But there's nothing he can do about it right now, so he quickly taps out a note to her ('Late night. On call w/ cops. TTYL.') and shoves it forcefully from his mind, focused on the more immediate problems and prospects in his shower.

What's one more nail in the coffin?

Entering the en-suite, he sees her outline through the foggy environment, watches her move, methodically washing herself, and he takes a moment to just look. Stepping in behind her, he knows she knows he's there, but she doesn't halt her bathing ritual, scrubbing her shoulders with a cloth, and oh, she knows exactly what she's doing.

"That's _my_ job, Beckett," he grumbles, grins wolfishly. Good. She's not reacting to Beckett any more.

Seizing the cloth, he picks up where she left off, not missing the ghost of a smirk he catches over her shoulder. Currying over her skin, he notes the light bruises forming on her hips and waist, a surge of guilt mixed with the claim inherent in the mark that makes his blood pound. When she turns, falling lazily into his soapy embrace, his last thread of control snaps and he captures her mouth, tugging her close and wrapping his arms around her.

"We can't do this again," she protests weakly.

"Please," he chokes out, "we're already here, and you're…"

He doesn't have time to think of or tell her what she is, because her mouth is on his, warm and desperate and searching, her hips seeking his, the cool water sliding in rivulets over their heated bodies, and he can't even think, can't preemptively regret this. Her hand guides his down between them, closes it around him.

"Show me," Kate requests, "show me how you touch yourself, when you think about her, me."

He wants to tell her it's always her, that she's not Nikki and that the whole act is really fucking confusing, but she's standing in his shower and her hand's on his, and she's looking up at him like _that_… it's just not worth arguing with her.

"You first," he growls, and to his delight, she complies, bringing her free hand to her thighs, stroking her skin with the back of her hand and her knuckles and _shit_ that's not an image he's getting rid of any time soon. Teasing herself, she gives his hand a squeeze and he absently starts stroking, adding a twist here and there, but all his focus is on watching her.

"What do you want me to do?" And _that's _a question he could spend a lifetime thinking up creative answers for, now isn't it? But his creativity has abandoned him now, replaced by sheer need, and just about anything would do it for him now.

"Tell me what you want me to do. Use your words, tell me," he gasps as her hand squeezes around his, and her dark eyes glimmer with mirth and arousal and _Kate._

"Okay," Kate agrees, up for his game, up for anything. "I want you to kiss my neck," and she hasn't finished saying it before he's there, sucking and kissing and tasting, dragging the flat of his tongue over her skin, savoring the faint taste of her diluted by the streams that surround them.

"Keep going," he orders, and she does.

"Feel how wet I am, Castle," she gasps as he drags a finger through her, abandoning himself and letting his erection bob between them. "Touch me," his thumb circles her, but she pulls back, whining at the loss in spite of herself and he nips her clavicle, works his way up to the underside of her jaw, sucking on the pulse point, "not there, not yet. I want your finger inside-" her command cuts off into a moan when he complies eagerly, pushing one digit in to the knuckle, groaning at the feel of her contracting around him, so wet and hot in contrast to the tepid water around them, the slick, cool slide of her skin, "-yesss," she hisses.

"More." He adds another finger, scissoring them inside her and she keens, rocks her hips against him while he stretches her, and he feels her short nails claw at his ass and lower back, feels the pride in the marks she's leaving on him.

"So good," she breathes, "deeper- yes," he thrusts his fingers into her all the way, hips lightly mimicking the action, loving the way she's biting his jaw, but he needs her to keep talking.

"Your words," Castle reminds, "use your words."

"Faster, please," she requests, "right there!" He presses down on the spot his fingers just brushed and she cries out, "Castle!" so he does it again, withdraws his fingers, only to push right back in, again and again until she's writhing on his hand, crying out, spasming and coming apart and calling his name. He continues his ministrations, working her through her orgasm, relishing how her thighs shake and her breathing against his neck has grown harsh and ragged.

"Stop!"

He does.

"Kiss my stomach," she asks, quieter and less demanding, shier and sweeter. He chuckles at her mercurial nature. Sinking to his knees, he blinks up at her, drinking in the sight of her eyes half-closed in pleasure, her cheeks stained red, her dark hair now devoid of the garish dye and curling in wild directions, falling in damp waves and sticking to her face and neck and _fuck_ she's never looked more beautiful. His lips roam across the plane of her abdomen, but he never lets her drop her gaze, waits for her next command.

"Grab my hips," he does; she leans back against the tile, shivering from the cold and the aftershocks of her release, "I want your tongue on me."

Hell yes.

Castle needs no further invitation, diving in and groaning at the taste of her, the exigency of the night before gone, leaving him time to explore and take leisurely pleasure in her, work her slowly and thoroughly with his tongue and his fingers. Her hand fists at the base of his neck, holding him in place (as if he'd go anywhere) by the short, damp locks of his hair. He toys with her clit for a while, but when he can resist no longer, he shifts his angle – knees scraping on the tile below him but fuck it, it's worth the pain – and plunges his tongue deep into her grasping heat, grabbing her thigh and hooking one leg over his shoulder to improve his access.

"Fuck!" she screams, and yes, and there, and the bright, tart flavor of her floods his mouth, coats his face when he presses his thumb to her clit again and feels her body go limp against the wall, still except for the tremors that run through her, radiating out from her center every time he gives her another suck or he passes over just the right spot as he bathes her clean with his tongue.

"Please," she pants, yanking his hair to pull him up, though he gets in a parting lick none-the-less, "I n-need you in me, now. Fuck me now!"

He gives her a naughty smile, delighted when she returns it with one of her own. Game on.

"You're going to need to be more specific."

"Put m-my le-legs, over your h-hips," she stammers, and he does as he gets to his feet, rewarding the effort it's taking her to speak at all, "l-line yourself – fuck, up," he drags his tip through her swollen core, teasing her, not giving her the satisfaction she wants before she tells him exactly – "please, Castle! I want you in me! I w-want you to thrust all the way into me, all at once."

His second's hesitation at the memory of how it hurt her last night when she took him costs him dearly, as her expression falters, like she's done something wrong, said something she thinks will displease him. It's borderline unsettling, how she always seems to be looking for the right answer, the one she thinks he wants to hear; how quickly she changes when she thinks he's unhappy with her, how insecure. It's definitely not how he knows her outside this context.

He'll fix it. He'll show her that nothing she does or asks for here will come with judgment or derision; that she doesn't need to worry about it ever, ever again.

On one long stroke, he pushes into her, unrelenting until he bottoms out and stills, grasping her face with his large, rough palm, thumb rubbing circles just under the soft flesh of her ear, forcing her to look at him, trying desperately to show her how completely not-unhappy he is with her, with anything she'll share with him. It calms her down again, her sly smile returning, just Kate.

"Tell me what you want," he repeats raggedly, "tell me how you like it," resisting the urge to close his eyes at the feeling of her so tight and grasping around him, the sight of her looking to him like nothing else exists at the moment; like he could do anything and she'd love it.

"Hard, Castle. Hard and fast," it comes out less of a command and more a question, and there it is again - this searching for the correct response, like this is some kind of test she's supposed to pass and she's uncertain of her comprehension of the material. He doesn't move, doesn't comply this time even though she's done what he asked and used her words.

"Is that what _you_ really want, Detective?" he uses the title purposefully, not wanting to use the wrong name and upset her when she's clearly feeling vulnerable already.

If he thought there was nothing worse than hurting her the night before, he was wrong, because the expression she gives him – confused and wary and almost awed – tells him all he needs to know. The truth is mean and horrible when he gets it at last, when all the pieces of her behavior add up to the heart-clenching suspicion that no one's bothered to ask her before.

* * *

_My sincere apologies to signed reviewers; my response will be slow for a while. Typing up the chapters for this is taking all of what little free time I have already! I appreciate each and every bit of feedback immensely._


	5. Chapter 5

_No Need for Words Now_

* * *

_Is that what you really want, Detective?_

What the hell. She just goddamn told him it was! He stills inside her and she's not in the best position for this, but she gives her best effort at getting him to move again, or at least writhing enough to create enough friction to get herself off. He doesn't budge.

She knows, after last night, that he likes it rough, that he's good at rough, so what's his problem? She could abide his little game, because he's good at this and she doesn't want to leave it yet, so she thought she could play along. It's just Castle's game: getting her to talk him through it, getting her to tell him what to do. That part, fine. It's the dark undercurrent of concern and sadness that tints his every word in that question that she hates.

She's uncomfortably caught between anger and arousal and confusion. He doesn't move, just holds her up and she's trapped, forced to clutch to him, forced to feel the pounding in his and her chest with nothing else to distract them, sandwiched between him and the wall and all around him, and he just _stands there _and lets the water beat on his back as he assess her and she squirms under the scrutiny.

"What's your damage, Castle? You're two for two on stopping the middle here," she grouses, grasping at something – anything – to direct his attention off her, to make him stop looking at her like that.

Like he pities her.

She fumes. She's not pitiable. She's not his to pity. She's given him everything he wants, everything he likes – well, he seemed to like it last night - and he still has the nerve to look at her like that?

"Fuck me or fuck off."

Beckett regrets the ultimatum at once, because he's evidently chosen the latter and she's still on fire, her belly still wound tight and her blood's still calling for release as he pulls out of her gently. Too gentle. He's always too gentle with her.

"I'll take a third option," Castle states sharply, cutting off the water and grabbing a soft, dry towel from the rack as the remaining steam escapes the stall and fogs over the mirrors. The cold air and the intense gaze of his impossibly blue eyes turns her shy, wondering if he can see straight through her, wondering why he's still staring when he's seen it all in the last 12 hours. Kate crosses an arm over her breasts, irrational though she knows the action is, she can't take that stare any more, has to do something, has…

A step closer and he wraps her up, not unlike the night he wrapped her in his coat as he pulled her from her crumbling apartment. Extracting her arms from where they're crossed over her body in a ridiculous imitation of modesty, Castle fastens the towel around her, and she doesn't know why she's allowing it, but she doesn't have it in her to argue as produces another one and begins drying her hair. Her feet rooted to the ground, she stays still, though every instinct tells her this is not good and not safe and that he's going to do – or worse, say - something deeply uncomfortable very, very soon.

She takes a glance at him, trying to get a read on his emotional state, but his poker face is firmly in place and all she can make out is anger in his square-shouldered, stiff posture, but if he's angry, why is he drying her and caring for her like she's something lovely and delicate? Why, rather, is he not shoving her out the door for her clothes or finishing up what they started to relieve the heavy arousal that still pulses between them, that she feels press into her ass when he pulls her closer than is strictly necessary for the task? He gives her no answers, just ruffles her hair, leaving it a dampened but no longer dripping mess of waves.

"Come here," he says seriously. He's in no way demeaning or harsh, though he doesn't give her much of a choice. His broad arm drapes over her shoulder, a surprisingly warm and comforting weight, as his free hand dries his own hair, enough to get rid of most of the water.

Tossing the towel on the counter, he walks them out, pulls her back towards his bed where he stops short, holding her to him from behind. Ahh. So he is going to finish this. Good. They'll find some relief. End this thing on a high note, if she can just get him to-

"You know what we're going to do?"

Oh?

His voice is sweet and husky in her ear and her eyes slide closed for a moment, loving how it reverberates through his skin into her, soaking in the feeling – however temporary – of being held this way. Tilting her head back at an almost uncomfortable angle, she addresses him, and she wishes she hadn't.

"You were doing so well earlier. You liked what I was doing, when you were talking to me. So you're going to talk, now. You're going to show me what feels good. You're going to tell me what you like. You're going to tell me if something hurts, or is too much, or too little," his eyes bore into her, too intense, and she wants to hide again, wants to do anything to get away from him or pull him close enough that he won't think any more, won't keep picking her apart, won't expose her fleshy underside to his spearpoint attacks.

"Why, Castle? Stroke your ego? You need me to tell you how good you are?" she winces at her own words, knows they're cruel and hateful and untrue, but he can't… she has to throw him off.

His nostrils flare and she thinks maybe she's got him, as she turns her head down, looks at the floor to see his bare feet either side of her own. But he's had years of practice ignoring her barbs, her jabs, scaling the walls that she desperately tries to erect and repair to keep him out. He just keeps coming back and her fortifications are already weak.

"If you need to think that, you go right ahead."

Another precision strike to the mortar, right at the base, and it comes loose, crumbling to dust.

Beginning to fight the rising panic, her mind whizzes. She's far too willing, far more invested than she allowed herself to believe when she put on Nikki's clothes and life and personality the night before. Her defense against him is too weak, so weak that she's almost ready to lay down in his lovers' palm, hand herself over to him bit by broken bit and tell him to keep her safe, knowing he won't, can't, and that she'll end up in a million more pieces than she started with when he's done.

He doesn't mean to do it, wouldn't mean to do it, she knows that. Her indecision at the end of the summer was wholly her own undoing, but it _hurt,_ worse than anything, worse than she'd dared imagine and for a plethora of reasons she dared not examine too closely while she rebuilt herself in his absence. No; Castle hasn't got a malevolent bone in his body, but he's restless. He requires more. More than a cop with a lifetime's subscription of emotional issues could hope to provide. This little interlude is proof enough of that.

_What man has ever turned you away?_

"I'm sorry," she mumbles, a verbal placeholder, a bargain for precious seconds so she can figure out what to say and how to say it without choking on the words.

"Talk to me," he requests softly, and _why_ does he have to ask her like that, look at her like that? "Tell me."

"Tell you what?" She'll do it, fuck it, she'll do it, she'll tell him anything.

His hands begin to roam her body, then.

"Tell me: do you like this-?" knuckles skate across the underside of her breasts, teasing, skate over her nipple too lightly for any relief, "-or this?" down her pale side, over the ridge of her rib cage, sending a shiver through her as his palms rest against her hips and _god_ she loves being held that way, and…

"There," she gasps, relishing the rewarding squeeze he gives her, tender over the good-sore marks he left there the night before.

"Good," his voice comes out in a hushed sigh, full of relief and with a hint of renewed pleasure.

"Do you like this-" the fingers of one hand walk down her hip, down her thigh, towards where she still needs him, where she misses him most, wants the stretch and fill of his thick length back inside her, but instead he strokes her inner-thigh gently and _ooh,_ that's nice too, "-or this?" the fingers on her thigh grip now, she whines at the loss of the kinder touch, which resumes immediately when she voices her displeasure.

"Okay, good." Yes, yes, it's all okay, as long as he keeps touching her.

He continues. "Do you like this-?" Day-old stubble grazes over her cheek and rasps against the angle of her jaw before his lips seal over her neck, sucking just below where the collar of her shirts sit, and she knows what he's doing but she can't remember why she's supposed to care or be mad at him, "- or th—" cutting him off, she turns her head as much as she can, knowing what he's asking, meeting his mouth halfway and reaping the immediate reward when he allows her entrance, quivering with guilty delight when she tastes a hint of herself between him and the morning coffee.

He takes her mouth slowly, tracing shiftless patterns around her, making her memorize his mouth, only occasionally pausing to ask another stupid question - t_his? Or this? – This? Or That?_ - and before she knows it, he's replacing the fingers he was stroking inside her and filling her again, pushing in achingly slowly, just once before he pulls out, killing the pleasure that was building in the pit of her stomach – "no!" - and the back of her legs hit the bed.

"This?" Castle pushes her down on her back and her legs wrap around him on their own accord as he sinks into her again, gives her a few playful thrusts that have her head dropping forward onto his chest and she can't remember why she fought this game of his because really, no losers, and _yes_, "Or this?" Castle flips them over, leaving her again _– god, stop doing that!_ – but it's all worth it when he's sitting up on his legs, bringing her chest to chest with him, and she takes him in eagerly, throws herself on his cock, slides home back onto him, and _ooh_ and _yes_. The angle is so deep this way, penetrating and grinding and she's never felt fuller, never felt this good.

"This?"

"_This,"_ she confirms.

The questions stop at last when he starts channeling all that energy into showing her what he's learned, gripping her hip to hold her still, cupping her jaw firmly but stroking her face with his tender and calloused thumb, all while he builds the fire between them, warming her inside with his steady presence, outside with his embrace and the slide of his warm, damp chest against her own. Widening the spread of his legs under her, she groans dark and heavy at the minute change in the angle that leaves him dragging across her front wall on each stroke out, curling and hitting just where she likes each time he thrusts back in.

For a few perfect moments, she lets her head drop to his shoulder, lets her mouth wander him and nip where she can, and gives herself over to him. Her hips rolling to meet every delicious thrust, she lets him pour everything unsaid between them into this, lets him white out the world. Kate's wound far too tight, and he's brushing his lips over the column of her neck, featherlight and barely-there, but every single kiss a bolt of bottled lightning, crackling around her skin and ricocheting through her veins, settling at last in the deep recesses of her spine and center.

Her voice is foreign to her ears when she calls for him, low and desperate and dripping with sex and something she's unprepared to identify.

"Castle…"

* * *

She's warm inside, strangely calm as she's held under in the rip current of pleasure, collapsed against his chest and barely breathing, the act too much an effort for the shallow inhales and exhales it allows her. His heartbeat steadies her, washes over her and quiets her emotions, pulses into her breast, grounds her.

It's over, she knows it is; becoming all-too aware of the wetness that slides between them, and that which stains her cheeks, she stills, lets him manipulate her softly like a beloved ragdoll, tuck her head under his chin and wrap his arms around her. She doesn't deserve it. Shouldn't have this. Shouldn't let him hold her this way, it'll give him the wrong idea. She's already given him the wrong idea, and letting _this_ happen is cruel to both of them. Their castle's built on sand, any further effort is futile. But it feels so good; a few brief moments of happiness, of this, is too rare and too precious to let go of before she has to.

If he notices at all, Castle doesn't acknowledge her tears. He's too kind, too tender, and it makes her ache deep in the cavity of her chest when he strokes her cheek, curls his hand around the back of her neck to tilt her head back, capture the vulnerability of her lips once more, and she lets him, revels in the sensation of his broad palms roving over her soothing her heated flesh, the act surprisingly innocent despite their enduring intimate connection between her wide-spread thighs.

He's saying goodbye. A voiceless sob stutters through her and she hopes that he hasn't felt it, but this is Castle and of course he has. Gratitude in his caress becomes apology, becomes farewell.

What did she expect? This outcome was inevitable – she knew the night before when she set swing to this terrible, swift sword, that it would end their partnership as they knew it. She just didn't expect it would hurt so much, that the wound would bleed and ache so soon, so much. She wanted a quick, dirty fuck, to get this out of her system, to fulfill a long-held fantasy for both of them. Just a stolen moment, a game of pretend that they could leave behind once it was over.

Kate's never liked the phrase _lovemaking._ Thinks it's a gross exaggeration of a physical process, the artificial elevation of function into form. But what she allowed Castle today, it comes close. Closer than she's ever been, more than she's let her variety of other lovers do. It wasn't purely physical, that much she can admit. The night before was just sex, bleak and degrading to both. This morning was… something new. Uncharted territory in the world of Beckett. But perhaps she should have expected it, when she tried to give him Nikki Heat.

After all, she did hear him say once that he loved each and every one of his characters.

* * *

The fine hairs on his arms come into sharp focus and she has just enough energy to graze her cheek against his forearm, hard muscle and soft skin beneath her face. How easily she could stay here, if the world allowed them. It would be so easy to fall into the trap of believing that they could be different, that the real world would write them an exemption. But it won't. Real people don't get happily ever after. Real people get punished for bravery and rewarded for greed. Real people get 20 years of happiness and goodness and then they get left bleeding in the moonlight for it.

Eventually they have to get up, break Cinderella's midnight spell that's already granted them a generous reprieve. By the sun filtering through his window, she guesses it must be nearly noon already. He hasn't spoken in hours, and she's barely moved, except to turn in his arms and recline back against him, enjoy the illusion of being safe and protected and cherished.

Someone will inevitably arrive home at the loft sooner or later, and she'd rather maintain a shred of dignity than be smuggled out like an errant teenager while Castle distracts his family.

He hovers behind her, looking like a little lost boy while she gathers her clothing and rakes a hand through her hopelessly messy hair. Finding her panties on the floor, she pauses. They're really in no condition to be worn again. It's not a long ride to her apartment. Face flaming, she pulls her jeans and boots on, her shaking fingers struggling with the laces, before stuffing the lacy garment in the pocket of her leather jacket.

She doesn't know what to say, standing in his front hall. Maybe there's nothing she can say. Castle's deceptively casual posture as he leans against the doorjamb – not blocking her way, but not inviting her out either – confuses her, it's like he's waiting for something. She doesn't have a lot of time to think, because when she reaches for the handle, his hand imprisons her smaller one and his mouth crashes to hers one more time, groaning darkly as his tongue dances with hers and his hands wrap around her waist, fiddle with her jacket, straightening it on her frame.

It doesn't taste like goodbye.

Castle breaks from her at last, leaving her to emit a breathy sigh of disappointment, only to produce… her panties. He must have swiped them from her pocket while he fixed her jacket.

"I'm keeping these," his voice is dark chocolate and dangerous as his navy eyes twinkle with mischief and arousal, and he looms over her, swoops down to growl in her ear.

"And I'm keeping you."

* * *

_Short chapter. This, I guess, is the logical conclusion of the part stemming out of the prompt. Whomever submitted it to Kink Meme, my sincere gratitude for giving me a vessel for this long-unrealized idea, and I'm sorry (to you) that I took it in such a direction, I'm sure it wasn't what was intended. Everyone else, I hope you enjoyed this part and (crossing my fingers) that you'll stick around for the continuation. As originally stated, this will end up about 30 chapters. So if you've just enjoyed this as a kink meme fill, thank you very much and I hope you'll tell me what you thought; for anyone sticking around for the long-haul, I'm truly flattered and I hope you'll also tell me what you think, because it's really hard to get a read on peoples' response if… well… you don't tell me._


	6. Chapter 6

_We Sit in Silence_

* * *

She refuses his call and the few texts he sends, as vague and as deceptively casual as he could manage, go unanswered. By the next morning, Castle's given up trying to get her to talk outside the framework of a new case, and waits (patiently – he's definitely not sulking, not even a bit) for the city's murder rate to jump again. She'll have to call for that. Right? Ryan would wheedle for an explanation and Montgomery would definitely start asking questions, and if there's one thing she's likely to want even less than his company, it's questions about why she's suddenly rejecting it. He's got job security. Even though it's not actually his job.

He's beginning to suspect that he might have overreached, may have made the wrong deal with the proverbial devil this time. Alone in bed before he allows himself to get up and start the day, despite his lack of sleep, he's pondering the Faustian implications of the idea when the foggy silence of the loft is shattered by the sound of… theater, apparently.

Theater has never sounded so terrible. Theater also doesn't have to deal with the neighbors if they happen to keep normal hours (unlike anyone in his home) and don't appreciate 5AM exercises in caterwauling.

Castle decides – spur of the moment – to let Alexis learn a valuable lesson today about her gram. The hard way. Better she learn it now than when she's applying for a job and Hurricane Martha wants to teach her how to interview. The pull to rescue her takes all his self-control – underused and atrophied as it has proven in the last three days – not to swoop in and rescue her, despite the turning of her pleading eyes on him. He sighs. It's for her own good. _Grease_ is small potatoes; she'll either end up with an excellent acting coach, or she'll never tell her gram anything again. Either way, may she learn to draw the boundaries with Martha at a younger and easier age than he himself did.

There's such balance in the universe, Castle thinks, as his Beckett ringtone sounds. Murder calls, and his presence for the pre-audition performance is mercifully excused.

He'll have to re-schedule his meeting with Gina, but dead bodies take precedence. He shoves the thought from his mind, refuses to spend another second mentally playing out umpteen different scenarios in which he could break things off with Gina while maintaining a working relationship, and which would result in the least amount of emotional distress for her and the least potential for attracting undue attention to himself. He already went through a glass (or three) of scotch over the issue, vacillating between crushing guilt and eagerness to free himself to pursue Beckett. Even if she's not willing to go along with his plans quite yet.

That's fine. She'll catch on. Eventually. She gets into this mode of self-doubt and overthinking, complicates the simplest of solutions, but he can be there for her through it. Guide her. Steer her in the right direction as much as she'll allow. Despite his hyperactivity and easily-distracted nature regarding the inconsequential things in life, he's capable of a great deal of patience and persistence when called for. When it's worth it. The publishing industry would have eaten him alive if he weren't an uncommonly patient and persistent man. Hell, his ex-wife would have eaten him alive and _no,_ not a good mental picture, Rick.

Kate Beckett is definitely worth it, and he thanks whatever god he can think of that he's had twenty-odd years of writing to hone his patience and immunity to initial rejection, among other skills. He has a feeling he'll need it.

He'll wait as long as need be, as long as he can see hope. Just a single spark, that's all he needs. But he'd prefer sooner to later. Very soon. Tomorrow. Now. Now is starting to sound good to him. Nothing like an early morning coffee over a corpse to kick off into forever, right?

* * *

The tentative assumption of officer down puts a grim damper on the day before it starts, but Castle remains cautiously optimistic when Beckett regards him quite normally. The external tension drops considerably when Officer McDead turns out to be Officer McNaughty.

Cautious optimism turns into outright hope when she doesn't so much as pull his ear for his jokes about being mistaken for a male stripper, and he goes for broke, simpering to the drunken, obnoxious bachelorettes about being an 'assistant, volunteer homicide detective' in a way that immediately elicits an intensely resentful glare.

Really, Beckett? Now that's interesting. The jealous furrow that appears between her brows tells him she's quite annoyed by the comment and his transparently insincere flirtation with the repugnant witnesses. Surely she knows it's just to lull them into complacency, to get them comfortable enough to spill what they know? But she forgives him quickly enough when they get the pictures, and she takes her coffee without so much as a glare in his direction, just her grateful half-smile, even brushing _his_ hand today, her chilly early-morning fingers lingering a second longer than necessary over his own around the warm cup. Business as usual is, under the circumstances, the best he could have hoped for. This is even better, small though it is.

The rest of the day doesn't go as well, irritation clouding her interactions as they wait for a decent lead, but it's not enough to put a damper on his good mood. She's not cold, definitely not that fearful checked-out Beckett he caught a glimpse of the other night, though she is exceedingly careful to never be alone with him all day. Not for one single moment. Even uses Montgomery as a human shield for a while, pretending to be interested in his story about his own apparently quite wild bachelor party back in '81. Castle smirks privately. _Can't trust yourself to keep your hands under control, Beckett?_ It's just as well, because he's not sure he could either. He looks forward to testing the theory, though. Soon.

"Oh, Caaastle!"

Sooner than anticipated, maybe.

While he's been busy cogitating over how best to get her to break her control, she and the boys have obviously found something and he berates himself for his inattention, for not being there to help or at the very least offer a pithy comment or two. That sing-song, confident tone from her sounds like it could be either very good or very bad for him. Whatever it is, he wants in, especially if it means he'll be alone with her and he can test her a bit, push some buttons and see what happens.

* * *

The edginess settles into the line of her jaw and the set of her mouth and crackles in her blackened bottle-green eyes when they're alone at last in the car hours later, in _that_ get-up she had to go home to change into (and _surely _she doesn't think the fact that it's black and lacy escapes his notice?), off to find their Fabi-No at the "Package Store." The detective's anxious tapping at the pedals as they drive jerks the cruiser and that vicious spring digs a little deeper into his back with each sudden shift in velocity.

"Inching up into the crosswalk isn't going to make the light turn faster, Beckett," he grumbles, though it's softened significantly by the prospect of spending the evening with her again, in spite of the regrettable venue. She shoots a weak glare at him, but she eases off just the same.

The neon signs and thumping music of the club promise cheap alcohol and cheesy costumes, and already he's beginning to dread the drunken patrons and their potentially grabby hands.

"I can't believe you got dressed up for this," Castle snipes at her as she struts through the entrance and he follows clumsily behind. For him, he means. Because that's the conclusion he's most comfortable with and it carries enough hope in its own twisted way that he wants to believe it.

She doesn't respond, fiddling with the cuff of her jacket instead.

"Tell me again why Ryan and Esposito couldn't come with you?" Baiting her is petty but it works.

"We all agreed as _volunteer assistant homicide detective,_" - oh, that has some bite to it, she's still on that? -_ "_you could really _sink your teeth into_ this avenue of investigation."

He just bets they did. He bets the marks from other places he could _sink his teeth into_ are still quite visible under copious amounts of concealer too. Glancing at her neck, most of it is obscured by her imitation-bedhead (he's seen the real Beckett bedhead and it's a thousand times better, and _easy, Ricky, _you're here for work), but he finds himself none-the-less searching for any signs of himself on her. He can just make out the faint yellow of a fading lovebite, as predicted, under layers of makeup, and its presence is somehow comforting.

"And they called 'not it.'"

With that, she ambles slowly through the crowd, forcing him to abandon his inventory of her neck and keep up with her instead.

"You know, ever since I've been following you, I've been dreaming of the day you'd say, 'let's go to the strip club and get this dirtbag.' Just never imagined it would feel like this."

She leaves him with, "let me know if you need any singles," (cute, Beckett) and he wants to reach out and pull her curls, wrap the length of her hair around his hand once, twice, and take her mouth, hot and wet until she's pliant and moaning under him in front of all these people. The patrons, the dancers, everyone.

But she has a gun, and he'd rather wake up in the morning with all his parts and not possibly on fire, so he contemplates other, slightly more subtle avenues of playing into her game. And she's not looking too happy with him because he's just caught a pair of assless chaps – _ew? – _after reaching up on instinct when he spotted something flying at him in the periphery of his vision, and now there's gross hands all over him and grabbing at his suit – he _likes_ this suit –and she's definitely not happy about that.

Perhaps this isn't a total loss after all.

Singles, eh? Glancing around the crowd, he smiles deviously to himself. He'll have no shortage of _singles,_ alright. If Beckett wants to play this game, he'll play. He'll drag her down to his level and beat her with experience. If she thinks she can tease him and he'll just take it lying down (though that conjures up other images and he decides he'd rather gladly take a different kind of tease lying down), she's got another thing coming.

All he has to do is find a secluded table and order a drink he pretends to sip – he's on duty, after all – and they swarm him again like little colonies of scantily-clad ants to spilled lemonade. Some of the women are clearly drunk, and he spends the majority of his time batting over-eager, fumbling, sticky hands away from certain parts of his anatomy that he feels even more protective over than usual. He wants to make her jealous, tempt her green-eyed monster out to play; not disgust her completely.

"Castle?"

He's only just got crowd control mastered when she appears from the mass of writhing bodies, bottled fury roiling in her eyes even as the phony smile stays plastered on her face. Good. The bitter taste of her own medicine doesn't seem to agree with Kate.

He feigns surprise and guilt. The theatrical atmosphere of his early-morning adventures in teens and fading divas must have rubbed off on him, because it appears to work.

"Hey… honey," ooh, he knows he's playing with fire. Come on Kate, keep up. "Oh, you found me. I was just telling Denise here about you." She just gapes at him, stunned into silence, or so mad she can't trust herself to speak, which – to add to his remarkable track record in decision-making as of late – just looks like opportunity in the moment.

"This is my girlfriend," he blurts out, and it feels almost natural, "whose idea it was. To come here. Tonight."

The absent part of his brain labeled 'good judgment' finally clocks in and his voice peters out, the lie becoming less and less convincing with each sputtered word.

"She's very adventurous, you have no idea, there's…"

Well, look on the bright side: he's gotten rid of even the handsiest drunkard.

"Thank god you found me, these women are like piranha." She settles down next to him stiffly and passes him a drink, which he finds himself quite disappointed does not contain alcohol. He's just a writer. He should be allowed to drink on duty. It's practically a job requirement to drink. Hemingway took it too far, but before he spent his days at the precinct, Castle thought he had a nice balance going on. Grudgingly, he sips his drink – what is this stuff, anyway? It tastes like sugar water vaguely flavored with powdered tea – and waits for her to inform him of what she's learned.

There's still a thread of venom running through her smoky voice, promising pain later, but for now, he would hazard a guess that he's safe, both because of the public location and because she's got her terrier's teeth in a lead again and she's ready to shake it until it gives her something.

Or, by the looks of it, she's ready to shake Hans – _really, Hans? – _until he gives it up. How can she… she's teasing him again. She has to be. Beckett is a real woman, she doesn't go for… he's rising to her bait. But he has bigger things to worry about, because the faux-firemen are mobbing Beckett, despite her insistence that she just needs to speak with Hans, and her voice is rising in discomfort.

Castle seizes the fake extinguisher, not knowing what else to do, and it repels the horde enough for Beckett to isolate Hans_,_ and despite the glower in his direction, he's confident he's done the right thing, because there's relief in her posture and their suspect is complying and most importantly, no one is touching his Detective any more.

He'll have to remedy that soon.

* * *

_Hans. von Mannschaft._

Castle doesn't know whether to laugh, cry, or cry with laughter at the name. His characters may have names that border on cheesy – titles do sell books, after all, and some names just lend themselves to great titles – but male strippers obviously have a corner on the market when it comes to ridiculous monikers.

When Beckett straightens in her seat, abandoning the predatory half-slouch she adopts when she has a lead, he knows that the lead with Hans is going nowhere. Not their killer. While she ties up loose ends and pumps – bad word choice, bad mental image – _questions_ von Steroid for information about their mysterious and allegedly generous cougar, he injects comments here and there but functionally checks out. He allows his mind to wander, wonder about Beckett's actions tonight and what they might mean for him, for them.

He goes into writer mode, mentally taking inventory of the possibilities, plotting out the potential cause, conduct and consequence of each possible scenario.

Door number one: she's teasing him to move on him again, a somewhat repeat performance of Halloween, and she'll strike when she feels the time is right. No, unlikely – the Nikki Heat costume was what allowed her that freedom before and she even seemed rather unsure of that. She's on duty and after a killer, which means she's twitchy and on-edge anyway, she'd never feel the freedom and comfort to come onto him directly in the circumstances. Theory axed.

Door number two: she's not into him and is teasing him as punishment – perhaps for stealing her underwear? for his presumption? – and as a way to push him back by doing a piss-poor job of flirting with other men. At a male strip club. Instead of somewhere where it'd hurt, like with someone at the precinct. She's well aware that she has the wrong equipment for three-quarters (easily) of the performers even if she was interested in them. No; it's equal parts unlikely and too poorly-executed for Beckett. If she really wanted to push him away, to let go of whatever they have (had?), she would have done things much differently. Exhibit A: she wouldn't have called him in to work, maybe. Exhibit B: she definitely wouldn't have come here alone with him; rather, she would have asked Ryan or Esposito along to be her buffer, or left him at the precinct entirely, denying him field trip privilege. Exhibit C, and most interesting and encouraging of all: she wouldn't have dressed up, given that half the patrons of this 'establishment' are in jeans and t-shirts, with occasional displays of business casual mixed in. She spent enough time in Vice to know the dress code in a place like this, and she wouldn't have stuck out in her normal clothing half as much as she does now, with every eye in the place on her. No, the get-up was entirely for his benefit, given the deliberate choice in material. Ergo, she's still very much interested, even if she doesn't want to admit it directly.

Which leaves him with lucky door number three: she's not ready to ask him outright, but she definitely wants his attention (not that she has to work overtime or dress up to get that – she has it when she's dressed to the nines and she has it when she's waist-deep in a dumpster looking for evidence) and the spectacular display given by her green-eyed monster tells him that he definitely has hers. She's not able to rationalize or work up the courage to make the next move, so she's trying to push him enough that he'll make it for them. Possibly to balance things out, possibly just because she's not so brave without her Detective Heat badge and leather jacket, but whatever it is, it's working.

By the time they're done with Hans, he's reduced to monosyllabic responses and follows her dumbly when she spins on her fuck-me-heels, stomps out like she owns the place, not a single word to him, not about the case and certainly not about them. When they reach the street, he accosts her, trapping her with his size against the cruiser.

"If you wanted my attention, _Beckett,_" he purrs, "all you had to do was ask."

Beckett turns her glare on him, and suddenly, his self-congratulating on figuring out her motives turns to self-doubt. She's not just angry, she's upset. There are no tears in her eyes, just hard coals of irritation, but her lips are quirked downward and they quiver before she snaps at him.

What did he do?

"Shut up and let me go, Castle," she barks, her voice wavering on his name, and this does not sound like the outcome he wanted at all. He's so stunned by her sudden shift in demeanor that he follows her order without question, just opens her door for her and retreats to his familiar spring.

"What did I do?" he asks soberly, when she's got the car running and can't very well drop him in the middle of the road for trying to talk.

"Nothing."

Now that's a loaded word. Is she mad at him for _not doing _something_,_ or is she mad at him for something he did and unwilling to tell him about it? Whatever it is, it's definitely him. She's not invested enough in this case, not close enough to a definite lead or far enough from any lead at all for all this intensity to be coming from that. And whatever he did, it had to have happened between when they entered the club, and when they left.

She was relieved when he drove off the dancers, couldn't be that. He didn't step on her toes during the questioning of Hans, no more than usual anyway. What else did… _oh._ She couldn't possibly have thought he was enjoying those harpies hanging on him. Could she? Castle knows she has a jealous streak, her interactions with other women, no matter how innocent – Jordan Shaw, Maddie, even random suspects and witnesses who show the slightest bit of interest – tell him that much. And given the more recent developments in their relationship, he knew it would be considerably more intense now. But it appears he's touched a nerve that he didn't count on, exposed some unknown wound and clumsily rubbed salt into it.

Perhaps that performance, pretending to be into the dancing, was a reaction borne of hurt and jealousy, unplanned and unrelated to her initial ploy to tease him.

She intended to spur him to action tonight, of that much he's quite confident. But the intense focus on the road ahead, the fact that she's doing 50 in a 35 zone in an effort to get back to the safety and comfort of the precinct with haste, and her complete refusal to even look in his direction now contrast sharply with her earlier somewhat nervous, anxious demeanor, and he's unsure just what she wants now.

And what can he do? Apologize for imposing on a relationship they don't even have? Reassure her that he only has eyes for her, in spite of the conditions their non-relationship grew out of speaking volumes about his (and her) lack of respect to boundaries in a relationship? He knows he'd do much more damage than good if he tried to touch her now, even in a friendly way, and that it wouldn't be interpreted as such even if he could manage just friendly.

So he does nothing, says nothing, and he silently kicks himself the entire way to the precinct, slumping down into the seat to dig that spring just a little deeper into his back.

* * *

_Last chapter for a few days, as I have a rare full weekend off and intend to take advantage. Thanks for the wonderful feedback, and please, do keep it coming if you're so inclined. I appreciate every last bit of it!_


	7. Chapter 7

_You Look Me in the Eye_

* * *

Stupid. She knows she's being stupid, but she's still in the thick of it and she doesn't know how to stop. Her runaway emotions leave her careening into the underground carpark below the precinct in a way that makes Castle grip his seat for stability, she jams into a parking space that's deliberately too close to the next car on the passenger's side, forcing her partner to navigate very carefully to exit and buying her precious seconds to get away and compose herself.

What, exactly, did she think was going to happen? Of course he was his usual, charming self: able to work a room and have women eating out the palm of his hand within minutes of arriving. Error number one: thinking a male strip club would be a safe venue to… explore his interest level in her. She only considered the dancers; what she failed to factor in was the patrons, and now, she realizes she might not have been able to find a worse venue at all. Her undoing – an entirely predictable one, in hindsight – was in assuming that she would not have to compete for his attention.

And she lost. Of course she did, she thinks bitterly; she couldn't hope to compete with easy affection and the availability of other women.

But… no. Castle's not like that. If he wanted easy and available, he'd have had his pick of women to take back to the Hamptons in the summer. And since. He certainly wouldn't have picked his ex wife over them, if he was only interested in the easiest, youngest, hottest model he could find. The question still lingers in her mind, of why he picked _Gina_, why he moved on so easily.

Kate sighs, turning back around from the elevator where her feet have carried her in her distraction. She shouldn't be thinking about this. She shouldn't let herself get distracted. But it's not like it's preventing her from doing her job.

She's screwed up. Again. Deep down, she knows he wasn't interested in anyone else. The thought at last occurs to her that maybe – just maybe, if she allows herself to hope – that he was trying just as hard to catch her attention, in just as immature and unproductive a manner as she had.

"_Oh, I'm a jackass_," she mumbles to herself, striding at a quick clip back toward the car.

She finds him leaning against it, running a hand over his face in the same way she saw him do in his office the other night. Stressed. Tired. Broken. If this is what she brings out in him… if this is the grief she causes…

"Hey," she says quietly, contrite. His head snaps up, eyes weary and mistrusting, and her throat clogs with a lump of shame and regret. Before she knows what's happening, there's a pair of arms, large and warm and safe around her, enclosing her shoulders easily. No insistence, nothing more suggestive, nothing but good and forgiveness and more that she does not at all deserve.

"I'm sorry," she murmurs into his chest, her voice small and crackling, but he understands and nods his acceptance, chin scraping the top of her head as he does.

"Me too."

A stolen moment in his arms in the dingy precinct parking lot is like retreating home, a momentary reprieve in an arduous journey, and it shouldn't feel this good, this right. She fits so perfectly in his arms, and he's big and warm and steady and they've had a 17 hour day and those strippers were foul and she just wants to stop spinning for a moment and catch her breath.

The elevator tone echoes loudly through the subterranean space and they jump apart awkwardly, but it's just some miserable-looking uniforms. They don't even bother to acknowledge that they have company as they grumble with each other about being cast out into the cold at this hour.

"We need to talk," Castle says gloomily. Kate begins to respond, to stall him, to push back against the inevitable, but he pre-empts her. "Later, I know. Later."

* * *

"She's married – juicy."

She spends the elevator ride up freaking out. How could they have been so careless, embracing like that in the precinct? Surely there are cameras in the parking lot.

But it's not like they really did anything. They're partners, in a weird way. She doesn't know what else to call him, if not her partner. The department gave up assigning her a real one ages ago, when she went through three in a year. Royce retired; Strossmann was an old timer who didn't think _little girls_ should be playing cop; and she had graduated to Detective just after she and Tamaro – a bitter lifer in the lower ranks – were paired up, and he hadn't spoken to her since. So yes, Castle is the closest she's come, really, since Royce, to a real partner. She doesn't want to think about what that says about her track record with partners. But history or not, that's what they are, and an embrace is not even entirely unusual for partners – comfort based on mutual understanding and experience. She puts the thought to bed ("_Caaasstlllee_—!") - puts the thought away in a cold, mental filing cabinet - and tries to focus on their case.

Ryan and Espo haven't missed a beat since their return to the precinct, and they appear none-the-wiser, eager to fill them in on their findings about their new lead: the wealthy and jilted Rebecca Dalton. Though she files away interesting bits of information, she knows the lead is going nowhere until the morning, and the long day begins to settle as a dull ache above her right eye.

Castle comes up with a story on the spot, and it's juicy, alright.

"Rebecca marries young; spends her twenties and thirties under the thumb of a rich, yet domineering husband. Well, he dies," Castle narrates dramatically, and Ryan and Esposito lean forward like Kindergarteners at story time, while Kate shifts in discomfort, not liking at all where this is going, "leaving our _ageing_ beauty finally free from the shackles of a loveless marriage."

She doesn't like this at all.

"One night she's out with her ex-model posse, and she meets the very charming, very handsome Derrick. For the first time in years, she feels _alive_ again." She wants to bolt out of the room when he turns from the little boys in his audience and casts a desolate, yearning look straight to her, and who are they even talking about here? She's certain she has the deer-in-the-headlights look, but Ryan and Esposito are too far under the author's spell, too invested in the entirely fictitious tale he's spinning to notice, and Castle continues, cutting straight to the end.

"The relationship reaches its inevitable conclusion when Derrick meets someone closer to his own age. The heartache has Rebecca so distraught that she kills Derrick in a jealous rage."

The author pauses dramatically while Esposito nods along and Ryan is one shade away from blue from holding his breath.

"If she couldn't have him? Well then, _no one could._"

Beckett's mind spins, wondering what all to make of his story, wondering if one of the boys or Castle has noticed that she's poised to run out of there at the first semi-appropriate moment, but Ryan saves her, immediately breaking the dramatic tension.

"Did you go home and watch Sunset Boulevard before your little trip to the Package Store?"

Saved. "Thank you for your always entertaining stories, but I think we will get a lot closer to the truth if we Rebecca a few questions tomorrow morning."

It's mutually and tacitly agreed upon by the entire team that this signifies quitting time. There's nothing else they can do tonight. She manages to catch up with Castle as he boards the elevator, headed down to the carpark again, knowing they have to talk, and besides that, she… she just wants her friend, wants his company. It's a slightly different feeling than not wanting to be alone, specifically wanting the company of one person, and it's a distinction she hasn't bothered to think of in some time.

"Hey," she breathes, tries to give him a smile he returns stiffly, his full lips pressed thin in a way that complements the reservation in his eyes.

And suddenly she's not confident at all, lost all her nerve, because rather than her partner, her friend, he just looks like a little boy waiting for the next blow to fall against him. His dark blue eyes no longer clear and bright, now wary and uncertain and with a certain starved quality she's never seen before.

But she needs to do this, needs to try and pull him back before he pushes her away in some well-meaning gesture of chivalry, an exercise in too-little-too-late, and finishes her work in fucking up a good thing. What they had – what they have – is a good thing. It does a lot of good for a lot of people. It's good for him and it's been good for her. It's even been good for the city – solve rates out of the 12th have never been higher, and the positive press has funding and support slowly but steadily increasing across the borough.

"Do you want to share a cab?" She meant to be more subtle, but he's striding off toward his car and she had to make it quick. He gets the gist, stops, turns and considers her coolly and she does not like that expression at all.

"Not right now, Beckett," he says gently - letting her down easily, she assumes - and her heart sinks. He quickly amends his statement, on sight of her expression. "I have to go home and see Alexis. She had a tryout for Grease," he smiles in spite of himself, love for the girl shining through, "I'll have to console Mother if she doesn't get the part."

Kate snorts in agreement, somewhere between relief that he's not rejecting _her – _just being a good father, which she'd never begrudge him – and nervousness that the longer they put this off, the more likely it becomes that she will lose him entirely.

"Yeah, of course," she exclaims cheerfully, while feeling ill, "I'll just-"

Her partner cuts her off, reaches for her hand, his fingers warm and dry and fitting perfectly around hers. "Can I… I could come over, once Alexis goes to bed…"

He's throwing her a life ring and damned if she's not going to take it. It's more than she could expect, but she allows the little flicker of hope that sparks in her chest.

"Okay," Kate agrees quickly, cursing herself for how much she knows she sounds like her whole world hung on that answer, for how easily she suspects it could if she didn't keep her wits about her.

For how easily she could make him the biggest part of her world. The center, at least, of the living world in which she dwells when not dealing with the dead. He'd probably let her. It's clear that these feelings he has go deeper than she originally anticipated. Certainly beyond mere interest and inspiration, or a duty to a partner, or even a desire to help solve her mother's case – for the mystery, or for her – as she once believed. He cares for her, for Kate the cop, Kate, his friend.

But he's responded just as well to her when she wasn't quite herself. He liked that. He wanted that. And that's what she can give. Fantasy, inspiration, relief. He gives her hope and makes her job – her life – a lot easier to bear, provides her so many of her brief moments of happiness. Surely she can be this for him, be what he needs, for as long as they can push this thing. As long as he wants her.

"I'll be over when I can, then. Eleven, midnight… just text me if—if you change your mind or you're too tired because this day just doesn't seem to end and-."

"I won't," she cuts him off, grinning at his verbal vomit that betrays his own lack of confidence in all of this that's somehow reassuring. "I'm tired, but not that tired. I won't change my mind."

And she doesn't.

* * *

Four messages blink tauntingly from the answering machine of her home phone, which means it's one of the grand total of two people she knows outside of work. Her stomach turns. Her father would have just called her cell phone if it were that important.

Mentally calculating the current time in Sri Lanka – 9, 10 in the morning? – she knows Josh is probably already wrist-deep in someone's chest cavity. She probably shouldn't interrupt him. And besides, _he_ makes _her_ wait days for a return call. She's busy too. She has things going on. He should be able to understand that; he always has in the past.

That's what she likes about Josh. No demands. Kate finds the best way to approach people is with lack of expectation and standards low enough that they are nearly always met. Anything exceeding such standards is an unexpected bonus, a pleasant surprise. Far easier to avoid being let down or led further down the path into total disillusionment than her job already lends itself to if there are no expectations to be failed, no bar that she must lower. No lofty idealizations of other people to inevitably come crashing down at her feet when they prove to be only human, or sometimes less than.

Idealizations are for people so removed and untouchable that she will never encounter them (unless they turn up in the morgue), and they will never be able to disappoint her. Saints and dead movie stars and tragic princesses and martyrs and mystery writers.

Two and a half years out, she can finally admit to herself that she hated Castle in the beginning not because he was cocky, not because he was arrogant, not because he occasionally did her job better than she did and lorded it over her. Not even because he was intrusive and annoying and obstructive to her ability to concentrate solely on her job. Who had to deal with Esposito and Ryan when they first joined the department? They were arguably worse than Castle in a lot of ways.

No. She hated him because he was her favorite author from the time she was a scrawny 16-year-old reading his books under her covers and finding comfort and wonder and strength in his characters, wondering what the man who breathed life into them must be like, and the real thing didn't live up to the book jacket.

The real thing was… well, real. Not some modern-day facsimile of the prince charming of her childhood stories. The real thing was almost as bad as the Page 6 reports she'd always told herself – in order to preserve the illusion – were greatly exaggerated. While they were exaggerated, they weren't entirely out of the ballpark. The real thing was not always insightful and was every bit as emotionally closed-off as she was – though he deals with it rather differently, surrounding himself with superficial friends and vessels of influence who don't dig deeper, perhaps in fear that if they did, they'd find something ugly or lacking.

And he is. He is ugly and lacking, sometimes. She is too. She hated him for it because she could no longer hold him to an impossible ideal. But when it became clear to her that he wasn't going away any time soon and appeared to like hanging around the precinct, she made a conscious effort to erase her expectations, to start at zero. And from there, he'd quite impressed her.

He'd impressed her a lot, in fact. And that was almost worse. Instead of the one-dimensional expectation of prince charming she'd built up over the years of reading his books and admiring the young, handsome author from afar, he built himself up. An entirely human, sometimes very charming, sometimes not-so-charming man, whose love of his daughter and his mother had sprouted the first seeds of redemption of his character in her, which over time had grown and flourished into respect, admiration, even trust. He impressed her as he grew and changed, matured but never relinquished his childlike outlook, even in the face of overwhelming ugliness. To him, people were still basically good, and the world was beautiful, and he greeted every day with an enthusiasm to live that she herself had lost many years ago when life became all about logic and duty.

Then he left. Curling deeper into the corner of her couch as she thinks about it, she feels her chest tighten, all these months later. She didn't learn her lesson the first time. Their second year together, she built up expectation all over again, around a more real and realistic version of him, but expectation none-the-less. And recognized only when it was too late how much she had invested already, without even consciously acknowledging it. It wasn't his fault, of course. She turned him down. He had every right to move on; it probably wasn't even a serious offer in the first place. Not like she built it up in her head.

She doesn't know if she'll ever learn when it comes to Richard Castle. He endears himself to her so naturally. She puts up a good show, but she's not fooling anyone any more into thinking there's genuine malice in the eye-rolling, the sniping, the childish bickering that's turned more to play. She can seldom even fool herself any more. Castle is infectious and his hope and optimism rubs off on her in the best and worst of ways.

That definitely makes it worse, because he is going to leave for good one day and she is going to be left with another disappointment in another person she shouldn't have allowed herself to hold to an ideal, and they will end up another cliché of male-female partnerships that end badly when one develops feelings and expectations that cannot be met even by the best intentions of the other.

By contrast, Josh is nice and easy. Her expectations are always exceeded when he manages to call, even if it's a few days late. He delights her by treating her with basic respect, even if it's perfunctory and disingenuous at times. She's downright impressed that he backs off and allows her to keep up her personal boundaries (even if he doesn't even realize they're there).

Face value. Josh thinks she has a pretty face, and he values that, and it's simple enough.

Josh would never dig into her mother's case. Josh doesn't even know or care that it's still an ongoing investigation. Josh doesn't want details about that case or any other, just as she doesn't want details about the gangster whose abdomen he extracted a bullet and a pound of cocaine from, unless the guy ends up on Lanie's table.

Life with Josh… wouldn't be bad. But not-alone is not the same as together, and she feels a stab of guilt. He's not in love with her, of that much she's certain, but he's on _together_ and she's still stuck on _not-alone._ It's not fair to him. But someday, perhaps she could grow accustomed to his presence enough to settle down, with him or some faceless future man like him. Doesn't matter who exactly, they're all more or less the same, the kind of guy she started dating once she settled into life as a cop. There's a certain safety in their sterility, a zero-degree world she could build with a Josh Davidson, where she could separate work and home and at home, she could rest and never be hurt too-too badly, no matter what he did or didn't do, because no expectation inspires no disappointment.

The knock at her door shakes her, makes her gasp and jump in a way more suggestive of a paranoid waiting for the G-Men's knock than of a homicide detective waiting for her partner. Kate composes herself and puts her comparisons in a box to fight it out amongst themselves, for now.

Opening the door to her sublet, she's taken aback by the sight of him: jeans and a fading t-shirt, warm leather jacket that looks like it's seen better days. She's seen him in his casual clothes before (she's seen him in nothing at all) but somehow it always surprises her.

"Come in," she exclaims, and he gives a nervous laugh of relief and ruffles the messy back of his unstyled hair as he crosses the threshold into her space. Prior to his departure for the summer, poker nights at the loft or an occasional all-nighter on a case that would spill into her apartment had become an occasional thing they did. He hasn't been back to her place since. But nothing has changed here; it's still all temporary and bare-bones, so he can't really legitimately say he likes what she's done with it as a nicety.

"Did Alexis get the part?" she figures it's a nice, safe topic, and she is rewarded when he gratefully smiles for the distraction.

"No news yet. My mother's keeping her up running lines, so when I got home she saw an out."

Castle launches into talk of his family life and she listens with amusement, pleased to hear him animated and happy again. He's brought a bottle of red, something from the Northwest, and it's sweet and crisp, a pleasant diversion from their nerves and the slowing conversation, when the Alexis topic begins to run dry. It's neither comfortable nor wholly uncomfortable; rather, a merely acceptable inertia that grows between the respectful distance he decided for them when he followed her to her couch and picked the spot furthest away from her.

"So…" he starts, at an atypical loss for words.

She doesn't know what they're supposed to do either.

"I'm sorry," it just tumbles out, "about earlier. It was immature and I just wanted to- I don't know."

"No, I get it. Same."

Kate smirks, the enjoying the lack of his usual smooth-talking.

"But you aren't—" he draws a deep breath, steadying himself, "-you still want… something?"

That hopeful look in his eyes is a call to action, so she does – act. Setting her glass down and approaching his side of the couch, she sets herself down primly next to him, and promptly slumps dramatically against his shoulder, seeking the same sense of comfort and rightness they had on their morning-after at the loft under the guise of familiar, friendly touch. She finds some small trace of it when his hand cups around her shoulder and the weight of his forearm rests across the back of her neck.

Something is more than nothing. She can't handle nothing with him. Not yet. Eventually it will run its course, he'll find something he can live with easier, and she'll be less-hurt by nothing. But right now, she needs something. She thinks he does too.

"Yes," she answers simply.

"Good," Castle sighs. "I'm not asking you for anything you're not ready to give, not yet. I'm not even asking you to break up with the doctor," Kate winces. She knew it'd be brought up and it's probably good that it's now, because it would only become more unpleasant the longer they ignore it.

"I should," she says at last. "We're not even on the same continent most of the time, and there's like a half-hour window when we're both awake and not working." And why is she telling him her problems with Josh? It's not like this thing with Castle is hers to keep. That's a neat book ending, but she's done chasing fractured fairy tales. The best prediction of the future is the past, and hers does not spell a happy ending to this.

Castle presses his lips to her hair anyway, and doesn't say anything on the matter. She can feel that he wants to say something, that he in fact burns with it, but he's chosen now – now, of all times – to start respecting her boundaries and it's surprisingly unpleasant. He's always pushed, sometimes for the worse, but usually for the better. She needs him to push her, to challenge her.

She needs him.

She hates needing. Needing anything. At one point, not long after her mother's murder, she was resentful of her own body to _need_ food or sleep. Pleasure took a lot longer to accept. The ease with which Castle has re-established a need in her life since his return is frightening. But there's little denying his importance to her now. She needs him around. A year ago when Dick Coonan held a gun to his side and made her choose, she said she needed him alive. It took her months to realize just who she was talking about – and it wasn't her mother's murderer.

"Castle?" she asks, as she feels his steadily-slowing heart beneath her ear.

"Hm?"

Her heart pounds in her chest, panicking with what she's about to say, unable to stop it from happening even though it's very much a bad idea and will give him the wrong idea and –

"Ask me, in a while." What has she just agreed to?

He shifts under her, cranes his neck to consider her, to search her for any signs of deceit. He must approve of what he finds, because he nods, brushes a chaste kiss across her lips that leaves her tingling in ways that by all rights, such a small gesture should not.

"I will."

* * *

She wakes in the dark, swimming back to the world slowly and assembling the pieces of the night before. She feels the warmth of her oversized shirt draped over her, the pleasant weight of an arm rested on her back, the steady thump of a heartbeat beneath her cheek, skin against skin. His breathing is quiet and deep, even and restful, comforting and infinitely safe. Warm exhales curl into her hair where his cheek presses atop her head. Castle.

Kate is surprised he's still here, that he stayed when she must have gone out on him. Their conversation had quickly faded out, upon her reckless request that he push her, some day, the implication that she would be able to be what he needs some day seeming to satisfy him in a way that scared her and left her looking for the exits before the day and several sleepless nights before finally caught up with her.

_"Beckett… when was the last time you slept more than an hour or two?"_

He stayed. She doesn't remember getting into bed, only vaguely remembers zombiing through her bedtime routine. He… he dressed her, he must have. She doesn't recollect doing it herself. She certainly would have chosen something with fewer holes around the collar and a lot more lace and silk if she'd known she was going to bed with Castle.

_"Halloween."_

The burn of embarrassment stains her cheeks, fading mercifully into the cool darkness, unseen by her sleeping partner. She called him over to explore what they'd started that ghoulish night and the heavenly morning that followed, but then she'd just fallen asleep on him again.

Why would he stay? She doesn't need him to tuck her in. She didn't ask him over for a sleepover, after all. He could have left her as she was, gone home to his family. He should have. He has a family, and that brings the guilt back in full force. She's taking him away from them, and for no good reason – what, an ill-conceived suggestion she knows she can't follow through on, and a warm body to sleep next to? – and giving him false hopes about what she can give him, what she has in her to give, is just making it worse.

Castle shifts a little beneath her, his arm wrapping marginally tighter over her, moving around her waist as he mumbles incoherently.

It's only been a few hours, but she feels more rested than she has in days. He's clearly content where he is, for a reason she doesn't quite comprehend and more importantly, does not wish to examine, and as long as he's here? She might not be able to give him what he needs, but she can give him this and maybe it's good enough for a while.

A smirk curls around her lips as she enjoys his touch for a few minutes. But she's ready to make good on the implicit promise of her request to see him tonight, and with that, she wriggles her way out of his hold, markedly careful not to disturb his light slumber, and drags his boxers off his hips.

* * *

_I hope this has answered a few of the more consistent questions via review and PM, and in turn, I hope I have raised more in the place of the old ones! What can I say? I teach for a living and I always prefer my audience to leave with more questions than answers._

_Please let me know what you think, good or bad, and thank you to all reviewers so far. It really helps to know where your minds are at._


	8. Chapter 8

_Directly_

* * *

Castle wakes to the sound of his own voice on a long groan, and for a moment, he's at home in his own bed, wondering how his room got so cold. His skin prickles, bared to the chilly early-morning air of an open window, but the fuzzy glow of a streetlight tells him he's too low to be home his loft. More tellingly, the scorching handprints pressed to his thigh and hip and the fire low in his abdomen are his first clue that this is more than a strange – if _very_ pleasant – dream, that this is not just another vivid fantasy that plays in his sleep and taunts him when he wakes. Yes; this is more. He's too cold to be at home in his bed, and bit by bit he stitches together the events of the night before.

Cranking his eyes open and pushing up on his elbows, Castle's whole body freezes and tenses.

His first thought is to be pleased that she looks at least somewhat rested – a vast improvement on some hours before, at least – but then the devious look in her eyes replaces any concern for her sleep with a mass of pure want. He's woken up aching and painted his chest and belly with the thought of her doing precisely this so many times, he hardly knows what to make of it now that she's right there, playful predation dancing in her lust-darkened eyes.

When she's certain he's awake and fully aware of what she's doing, she moves her hand away from his thigh, running her nails over his sensitive balls and base just enough to make him hiss in lieu of whatever he might have said to her, before wrapping her fingers around him as best she can and strokes. Her mouth must have already been on him, he thinks distantly, the cold air particularly stinging what her hand doesn't cover, lingering wetness cooling the oversensitive flesh.

"Kate…" he husks, voice thick with sleep and need. "You don't…"

"No," she enunciates clearly, but he doesn't understand. No, what?

It becomes quickly evident that her _no_ was not in reference to what he was thinking, because without further explanation, she lowers her mouth the last few millimeters, placing a delicate kiss to the swollen head and wraps her soft, full lips around him. The adolescent buck of his hips is embarrassing but she just smiles around him, watches him closely, a mirror of his quest to learn her days earlier. When she wraps her tongue around him, it's all he can take, his head thrashing back and hitting her headboard with an unpleasant thunk of skull on the wooden surface, but just as quickly he snaps his eyes back open and rights himself, the show she's putting on for him just too good to miss a second of it. He fights to keep his eyes open, though, as she seals her lips around him and lowers her head in a maddeningly slow descent, fights to keep watching as she buries him fully in her scorching mouth.

A warm hand snakes across his thigh, the other slowly moving to his balls again, fingers only just brushing his skin in a way that makes him jump each time she makes contact. Tongue swirling around and around him, he feels his tip scraping the back of her throat, her teeth raking lightly over the thick vein on the underside of him, just this side of pleasure-pain and that utterly consuming look in her eyes that he can only just make out in the dark, the way her swollen lips quirk upward as she watches him writhe and groan, that tells him just how much she enjoys the effect she has on him.

The fire builds far more quickly than he'd like, he's already too worked up but when she abandons her grip on his thigh in favor of nudging her panties aside and touching herself, he knows it's not going to last much longer. He's almost ready to pull her off him, his hand already threaded in her wild hair, tell her to stop worrying about him because he _needs_ to watch her and this angle gives him a maddeningly insufficient view, but she just holds him in her mouth, barely moving except the furious sucking and swirling of her tongue and she groans around him, the vibrations erasing any objections he might have. But he's not an adolescent; he's never forced a woman to… he has to warn her.

"Kate," he gasps, "Kate, I'm going to come, if you don't…" her eyes return to his, that disquieting dark warning at the sound of her name turning to determination as she bores into him, increasing the pressure of her sucking and humming, encouraging him to thrust into her with a nod of her head. Unwilling to push her despite the permission inherent in her action, Castle tries desperately to control the jerk of his hips, even as his stomach muscles tighten and spasm, his breath stopping and starting at haphazard intervals as the sensation overtakes him, and all his effort pours into just keeping his eyes open, watching her wicked smile around him as she swallows furiously. Kate at last takes him deep as she can as his orgasm curls through him, finally spilling his release down her willing throat, watching her bring herself closer with one hand while her other works him, making absolutely certain she's not deprived of a single drop.

Castle's mind runs completely blank, blissed out and untroubled as his muscles unwind and the thin sheen of sweat evaporating from his overheated body cools him. But then she pulls off him and he falls from her mouth, cold air sending a shiver through him as he watches her sit up on her haunches, start to turn away from him, her hand still under the hem of the oversized shirt he slipped her stumbling frame into when she was too exhausted to protest his care of her the previous night. Her body still quaking with too-restrained pleasure, she casts her eyes downward, unwilling to face him.

Not a chance.

"No," he rasps out, sitting up fully to grab her shoulders, disliking very much how demanding that sounds, but it grabs her attention when he fears he's losing her again. He can't face it if she retreats into her mind again.

"Show me," he requests, more gently this time, and he breathes a sigh of relief at the acquiescence in her sweet, early-morning eyes, as the worry between her brows smooths over, placated by his command.

But she still doesn't move. She's waiting for something, he concludes, but she's shifting her body back for his view and that is progress. He's paralyzed, uncertain of what she wants, what she needs, what she's looking for, and the discrepancy between the three. She just stares at him, expectant.

Castle's stomach drops in a 30-storey free-fall, remembering her reluctance to take initiative the other morning, remembering her refusal to look at him the night before that, her unnerving way of trying to guess the correct response or the one she thought would please him instead of what she really wanted.

Shit. It seems they aren't past that at all, after all.

Rising to his knees and ignoring the way they wobble in the aftermath of his now doubt-tainted pleasure, Castle reaches for her, his emotions a limbo of desire and concern and indistinct anger at whoever it was that taught her this. There's submissive, he's seen plenty of that, but then there's… this. Whatever this is, it's been taught to her, intentionally or not. He tries to smother that all down, focus on the here and now – in the back of his mind is always that this might be the last time – focused on bringing back his Beckett.

"Show me," he repeats, taking her hands in his as he hovers behind her. Perhaps she's more comfortable doing this if not exposed fully to him, and he decides that's okay. As much as he enjoys watching her, he won't let this be tainted by too-much or too-fast or too-far. She still waits for him, for instruction or initiative of some kind, and he doesn't like this. He doesn't like it one little bit. Not long ago, the idea of Kate Beckett in bed and looking to him for direction would have driven him to distraction, but the reality is nothing if not unsettling. But she's looking over her shoulder at him with a lazy, sappy half-smile and something dangerously close to adoration, with expectation and anticipation, so he moves her covered hands with his. Her happy sigh at his guidance, his velvet touch to her humid and heated skin is reassuring. However she comes by it, she does seem to enjoy this (a lot, if the barely-suppressed mewls and cries she makes at the barest contact of his fingertips is any indicator), and he'll ignore the former problem – for now – in favor of the latter reward.

She relaxes back into his chest and he murmurs indistinct encouragements, muffled by her skin and trapped in gooseflesh that arises under his lips on her neck. Unhurriedly, his assistance gives way to her practiced path, the newness of him fusing itself to the old rhythm of her, but he keeps his hands in place, letting her guide him now, showing him more of what she likes. Castle tries to keep up, categorizing the pressure she likes, the speed, the precision of the touch to her nerves and the way she only pushes the fleshy tip of her and his fingers inside her. He files it away with the fact that she loves her thighs touched - he slides a slick fingertip away from her hand and traces circles over the pale, taut skin there where the remnants of a lovebite stain her otherwise flawless, milky skin, and watches her shiver and squirm with delight. He burns it into his mind, how she likes to be grabbed around her hips, and two nights' worth of evidence (his most surprising and serendipitous discovery) that Kate Beckett is a cuddler.

He has much to learn about her. But that's enough lessons for now, he thinks, as she comes apart, shaking and writhing under him with a breathy cry and he can't help but bring their still-woven fingers to his lips, to taste her again. She just stares back at him and begs him with her eyes to kiss her, to diffuse some of the stimulation they've just pushed her into. Castle obliges gladly, tasting a hint of himself on her, clutching desperately to her, willing this to not be the last time.

He can't stand it, this indeterminate state, always wondering if each touch, each tender look, each kiss, each misstep on this misguided road they're on is the end. But she's not yet run. She told him to give her time, which isn't what he wanted, but it's something. Except he can't help but worry that time will only hurt worse and give her more time to build her walls and he's not sure if he can make much progress with her in the moments they can steal.

Amorphous ideas spring to his too-loud mind as he seals his mouth to her neck while her kisses grow fainter and she slumps into him in a puddle of limbs and cooling skin, halfway asleep again. Ideas of pushing until something breaks; waiting it out and waiting for her to come to him on her own terms; of just carrying on this way because it's awful and wrong and when she's not near him the guilt eats him alive and it's all still better than nothing; or of running away with her and showing her forever. What's appealing is not realistic and what's realistic is definitely not appealing, long-term.

When did he start thinking in long-term about her?

She shifts in his embrace with a precautious glance at her clock. 3:17. Did they really just fall asleep three hours ago? It feels a world away. But then – he supposes – time moves quite differently when you're living as though each step was the end.

"You should go home," she yawns, giving a cat-like stretch, pulling her arms in front of her and bringing his hands with hers and he winces at the audible crack from her spine, but she hums with contentment at it so he gathers that this is a good feeling. Another bit of information to file away for later. Contrary to her words, she makes no move to stop using him as her recliner, let alone allow him up to actually take her advice. It's quite alright with him.

"Hmm. Left a note in the kitchen saying I had to leave early. They won't expect me back until tonight."

Kate doesn't acknowledge him with a verbal response. She just buries her face into the groove down the center of his chest, brushes her warm lips across his skin, and soon enough her breathing evens out. Castle heaves a sigh of relief. There's no answers, many more questions – ones that are growing harder and harder to ignore – but they're no worse off. He can survive on that. Her steady-slowing heartbeat and exothermal flesh pressed to his is promise enough that they have at least a few more hours.

* * *

Her still-damp hair hangs messily over one shoulder and she's perched at her makeshift kitchen table – _really, Beckett, get some furniture or at least get a real apartment_ – in her robe and nothing else. He likes it. Not strictly for the view, either (though he'd never fail to appreciate that). She seems more Kate than Beckett now, but just as much _her_ for the moment, and that is a relief.

"Sorry about last night," she blurts out, breaking their comfortable silence and hiding half her face behind her mug of cheap coffee. "Falling asleep on you and all."

Castle takes a mental step back. He did not expect this and he wonders what the hell is going on in her mind, what makes her so apologetic when the Beckett he knows is so tough and confident, so independent and fierce. Clearly this state of mind is easier pulled from her than he once thought. She's apologizing, but for what? Not sleeping with him? If she thinks that little of him, of his opinion of her, he has no idea where to go from there.

She's a landmine and if he's not careful where he steps with his response, the whole thing's going to blow sky high. But he does the only thing he can, and throws a rock to test the field.

"Why would you be sorry?" he tries to keep the crack of hurt out of his voice and fails, ending on an upward inflection that doesn't suit him. But if he keeps her talking, if he can spur her to response without triggering an explosion, perhaps he can get to the bottom of this.

She squirms in her chair, displeased with the direction of this conversation. Good. Maybe if he can push a little more, he'll bring Beckett back or at least get some answers from her shadow.

"I didn't ask you here just to have to put me to bed. Not that way, anyway."

Castle sucks in a breath and replies, choosing his words with as much care as he can manage as his mind spins with that bit of information, confirming his worst speculative fears about her state of mind. If she honestly thinks that he's only here for the physical gratification, if she thinks that _not_ performing to some standard she thinks he has… _shit._ He's given in to her advances every time; which doesn't exactly do anything to refute her initial assumptions about his motivations. Time to deal with that. Now.

"Beckett, you were exhausted. We both were. You could barely move enough to get into bed. Look," he jumps down from his perch at the end of her table, hauling a chair to face hers, the same way they often work at the precinct, and takes her hand in his own, "I'm your partner. Your friend. I'm not here because of some… booty call."

Beckett snaps her hand back as if she's been burned, eyeing him warily. Castle stomps down a growl of frustration, drawing on all his patience to forge through this necessary conversation.

"Don't, Castle," she starts, but he cuts her off. They're not stalling this any longer.

"Do you think that's what all this is about?" Oh, he's on shaky ground already, but he needs answers and she can't go on thinking this way of him, whether she wants to or not. "Do you think I just want some kind of friends-with-benefits deal? I'm not 25, Beckett. I don't do casual any more. Especially not with you. I don't know what we are and we've got a hell of a mess on our hands, but it's not just sex. Not to me."

She considers for a moment.

"Don't you like that?" her voice is small and weary, and her eyes shift around his face, searching him guardedly, as if she doesn't really want to know – or won't believe – the answer, and his throat clenches around a lump of crippling sorrow. "You don't?"

He's waited too long to answer and fucked it up even more, he realizes his mistake too late as her shoulders bunch and her head drops.

"Kate?" he asks, trying to decide where he should be, whether or not to reach for her or give her space, and he doesn't know which one would do more damage. "Why would you think that?"

She worries her bottom lip between her teeth for a long moment before finally responding.

"I want you to be happy," she mutters, not an answer to his question, but it's something, "I want it to be good for you."

Castle lets out a breathless gasp of a laugh, unfunny as the situation truly is.

"Kate… it's more than good, but that's not…" he grasps for words, unable to say what he's not quite ready to put words to, "I don't want this to be just about sex. I want _you._"

And that look she gives him, canine-like in the quizzical tilt of her head – like this is the strangest thing he's ever said to her, of all the strange things he's said over the years – is the last straw. He feels everything and nothing at once, feels the fight drain out of him as he runs a hand through his hair and lets the stinging maelstrom of rejection pelt his bare and defenseless heart.

* * *

_I've gotten a few PMs since ch. 4/5 and on and it's become enough of a concern that I feel I should address it. Some readers feel that Beckett behaves like a survivor of sexual assault/abuse. If you had the same thoughts, or are afraid this fic may trigger you, (without spoilers) I will tell you that is **not** the direction this is going at all. I don't feel qualified to write or speculate on that subject. I'm terribly sorry if this has made anyone nervous thus far._

_As always, thank you to all reviewers to whom I'm unable to respond, and please continue leaving your wonderful feedback._


	9. Chapter 9

_You Met Me_

* * *

_I'm done._

Kate tried to force her Castle's angry parting words to the back of her mind, focus on work, but it pulsed through her anyway, unwilling to be ignored, demanding she mull them over and beat herself around the head with them.

_I'm done, Kate._

"Hey," Ryan greets kindly, and she snaps back into reality, grateful for the distraction, "you and Castle going to check out Ms. Dalton?"

Shit. He made it perfectly clear that their non-relationship was over when he stormed out, when she couldn't respond to his confession that he wanted more – and _why? –_ wouldn't even let her say her piece, but she didn't know if he'd be in today. Or ever again. The possibility that he would leave the precinct finds her stomach in constrictor knots, her throat suddenly jammed with a wad of cotton.

"Yeah, Castle's…" Ryan's expression is at once intensely interested. Of course it is. He's always been the emotional center of the team. He may be closer to Castle, but he can pick out how she's feeling nearly as often as her partner can, and she'd be a fool to assume he hasn't noticed their tense interactions of late. She scrambles for an explanation, a believable lie, or some non-assertion she can placate him with and be correct either way, "he's—"

"Late!" Castle's voice calls from stairwell, slightly out of breath. "Damn elevator's out again, might want to call maintenance and tell them to get on that, that's gotta be some kind of fire hazard, or what if some serial killer gets into the precinct and we go on lockdown, how're… Shutting up!"

Beckett gapes at him while Ryan seems to have forgotten she was going to say anything at all. Thank goodness that along with an increased respect for his own appearance, Ryan has picked up on Castle's short attention span.

"I'll go tell Montgomery," the younger detective excuses himself, leaving her alone with Castle in front of their desk. He casts his eyes downward, leaving a coffee on the desk next to her before retreating to his side of the desk, where he pretends to check his phone as a cover for watching her reaction in a very unsubtle way.

"Thanks," she mumbles, unsure of what to make of the action. He's showed up again, brought her coffee like always. He's done a better job acting normal than she has – Ryan was onto her in seconds, but didn't seem to suspect a thing from Castle – and doesn't seem outright angry. But there's a stiffness in his walk, a false brightness to his smile that does not reach his eyes, a slight ragged quality to his hair that suggests his habit of running his fingers through it when he's stressed.

He's not unaffected. Of course he isn't. He wouldn't have fled her apartment as if on fire if he wasn't upset. His blue eyes would not be framed with redness borne of something other than exhaustion (she knows he slept some last night, after all). But he's doing a commendable-yet-disturbingly-proficient job of hiding it.

When did he become so adept at hiding his emotions? This man doesn't do that. Except, he does. This man who pounded on the two-way mirror and howled with rage when a suspect spit on her – controlled. This man who spend an entire day freaking out about a mummy's curse he didn't even really believe in – collected. This man, who wears his heart on his sleeve – closed off. Perhaps his poker face extends much, much further beyond the table than she originally anticipated, and she wonders what else she's missed while she's been rolling her eyes at her partner's excitable, childlike demeanor. She's so used to seeing that, it has become all too easy to ignore momentary evidence in his movements or expressions or words that speak to a nature contrary.

"So," Castle ventures in deliberate, neutral tones, a thing unlike his typical overeager chirp, "are we going to go talk to the man-eating cougar?" He pauses, drawing a hand up to his head, poised to run it through his hair before balling his thick fingers – the mental image of what they can do comes to her unbidden and she squirms – into a fist and placing it limply at his side instead, "I could… I could stay here and help Ryan research, you could take Espo. If you don't…"

"Shut up, Castle," she chastises gently, "yes, we're going." And with that, she makes for the elevator, pressing the down button stubbornly until Castle catches up to her and she flushes red and his nervous chortle doesn't help, but it doesn't really hurt either. In a world where everything concerning Castle hurts, it is a welcome rock of almost-normalcy to which she can cling, if only for a moment.

* * *

Once suspended in the still and frigid air within the cruiser and safely away from the precinct, Beckett knows she has a captive audience. She has only a limited amount of time with which to gauge his position in this phantom battle they're waging.

"Are you going to tell me what I did wrong?" she asks, her voice quavering a bit, but beating around the bush has landed them here thus far, and here is not where she wants them to be. Being direct has possibility, at least – for outright failure, or for progress - and possibility trumps stagnation. "I don't know what I did."

God help her, she doesn't. In the hours since, she's run over every word and she can't understand his reaction. One moment, he's telling her that he wants her, that he wants more. The next, he's storming out the door, looking as if the last ember of hope in his life has been unceremoniously ground into the hearthstone by someone's shoe.

"You didn't _do_ anything, Beckett," Castle sighs, the defeat and resignation heavy in his tone as he digs into his position in the trench. "I apologize for walking out like that. I just needed time alone. To think." He's distant and cold. Un-Castle-like. He's trying to remove himself from her, from whatever he feels for her. He must still feel something, her panicked hindbrain reasons desperately. He can't have discarded everything that easily. So it's her turn to push, push him like he's pushed her. Like he promised to push her.

"No, something happened," she insists, trying to keep her words steady and to keep the despair out of each vowel, "and I'm dumb or blind or something, but I can't see what I did or said or didn't do or didn't say…" her voice crackles and breaks, at that at last forces him to look at her instead of staring resolutely to the sluggish traffic jam ahead. He has no choice but to look at her, precisely when she does not want him to.

"Beckett," he warns hardly, then softens and amends himself with practiced control, "Kate… we're on very different pages right now. I don't think we should carry on-"

"You're leaving, then." It's not a question, just unadorned and dreadful truth; the one she's known in the back of her mind was coming all along. She thought she'd have longer, thought they'd have longer together, but it doesn't change the inevitable outcome. She was foolish for her moments of hoping otherwise. Castle makes a non-committal noise from the back of his throat, its casual air a direct contrast to the lines of grief run through his face.

"I'm staying on at the precinct, if you don't mind that. If you do… I'll see if I can find some other misfortunate saps to inflict with my daily presence."

"That's not—"

"I know." Something in the way he says it and the way he leans into the side door of the cruiser, as if contemplating jumping out, tells her to stay quiet, but fuck that.

"At least tell me what I did. I thought—I thought…"

His eyes turn on her at last, flashing dangerously. "You thought _what,_ Kate?" he hisses, his baritone low and menacing, "you thought I wanted to use you? You thought I just wanted to fuck you and have a little fun? You thought that your worth to me is between your legs? Or maybe, maybe in your mouth?"

Kate searches for ammunition, for a retaliation as she gasps at his crude language, his casual cruelty, but no words will come and he's not finished.

"If you think so little of me, if you... if that's what you really believe I think of you... there's nowhere to go with that." He's entirely neutral and bland when he utters his next statement on the heels of the bombshell he's just dropped, barely a breath between them, and the change in topic is whiplash if she's ever see it. "You missed Dalton's building a block back."

Conversation over. No territory gained.

* * *

"What caused the breakup?"

"The relationship had run its course," Ms. Dalton replies curtly, still fussing over her well-kept orchid collection.

Ah, now that's a placation, a deluded self-narrative if she recognizes one. And she does. She's told herself enough and heard enough for several lifetimes.

_It's not like I loved him._

"That sounds like something that you would say when you're lying, either to yourself or to us."

_We're on very different pages right now._

She can't see him, can't hear a movement from Castle, but she feels him shift none the less, uncomfortable and restless.

Ms. Dalton is ready with a defense of her character – and aren't they all? – and Castle speaks up at last.

"Who broke it off?"

The widow opens her mouth but has no chance to speak her piece before her well-oiled – not to mention greasy - lawyer breaks in and begins talking for her. Beckett resigns herself. Once the lawyer starts talking, they rarely get anything of worth from the suspect.

An hour and a half and one hell of a contender for most awkwardly-silent car ride in history later, they're back at the precinct and reasonably certain that money is involved, rather than love or power. It's usually one of the three. Methods and other variations in the natural and unnatural aside, love (or lust), power, money, or cover-up of another crime committed in the name of the former three are typically the only stories they see, outside the occasional senseless rampage of the criminally insane. Now that they have it narrowed down to money, their pool of theories is appropriately smaller, and Beckett finds herself better able to focus on the case with a tangible theory on the horizon.

The biker's story only further confirms their suspicions as to the motive. A measly $25,000. That's what the young actor's life was worth to someone. Not enough to rent a garage in this city for a year. Not enough for a used luxury car.

"What on earth was this kid into?" she wonders aloud. "Seems like he was a decent kid. Not too bright. All that effort into coming here, trying to make it in this city. All to end up somebody else's sacrificial pawn."

"A good body with a dull brain is as cheap as life itself," Castle comments airily.

Beckett raises an eyebrow, certain he's quoting something and would enjoy the opportunity to educate her on the source.

"Spartacus? 1960? Stanley Kubric? Kirk Douglas, Sir Laurence?" he hisses in disapproval at her blank expression. "Doesn't anybody watch good movies any more?"

"I never did care for Kirk Douglas that much. More of a Cary Grant kind of girl."

And just like that, the neutral topic bears fruition to truce and they're back to some semblance of normal, though his enunciation remains overly precise the way it gets when he's nervous, and he's heartbreakingly careful to not look directly into her eyes. The way he's been rubbing his temples is a sign of a brewing headache that she's guiltily certain is her continued infliction upon him, among other pains not quite so outwardly obvious she's caused him of late.

"So it's Douglas, but I mean, come on, it's a Kubric classic! Oh well. No accounting for taste. Favorite Grant film?"

* * *

Ryan and Esposito both seem relieved that they're acting normally again when they arrive back at the precinct, fresh from the badger's den and ready to jump on figuring out where their struggling-actor-turned-stripper got 25-grand on short notice. The answer to that question is the key that will lead them to the killer or killers, of that much she is certain.

She feels better with a solid lead in hand and a job to do, a destination to reach and an investigation to conduct. At least, she's more able to relegate all things personal to their own box in the corner of her mind for the time being. Castle is calmer too. Still a bit removed, but talking well enough and he doesn't seem quite as eager to leap out into traffic as they haul back to the car to check out this mysterious Mandalay character.

They still work. They still feed off each others' theories, still share minds in bright flashes of brilliance. Once again, she both admires and is slightly put off by his ability to act as if nothing has happened at all in front of the boys, even to act somewhat normal when they're alone. She supposes she's acting too, since no one else seems to have noted anything more than a passing moment of tension. But Castle used to wear his heart on his sleeve, and how can he be so outwardly over it, so quickly?

She wonders what else he's good at hiding. She wonders if she's misjudged him too. It wouldn't be the first time.

* * *

It's not as if they had anything real, anyway. They were never an item. They never went out and sat in a cozy Italian restaurant; they never planned a weekend getaway; they never found themselves unable to get a cab in the rain and laughed as they argued about whose place was closest; they never came home to a semi-shared space after a long day, shared a bottle of wine and collapsed together, only to wake up and do it all again the next day.

Oh, he cared about her, in his own way. As a partner. As an interesting diversion. He definitely liked her looks. She wasn't blind. She could see it in the way his eyes lingered on her chest a little too long, the occasional suggestive comment, the way he enveloped her in a friendly hug that went on a moment more than just-partners. But he didn't like her enough to do anything about it. He let her down gently, when she asked if they could be more in her own, twisted way. He said he wasn't in a place where he could deal with a relationship, but she knew what he really meant. It wasn't him. It was her. She was too damaged, too naïve, too inexperienced, too jaded. He didn't want her. She wasn't enough for him. End of.

They brought things to an amiable close. He moved on, onto his next adventure. She moved up and on and into a new apartment, began to colonize it with her lonely things, decorate the hidden spaces with evidence of her quest for justice for her mother. She built her life around him once, and it crashed on her before it ever got off the ground. So she built a life away from him, around her work, and built the walls and reinforced them, and life went on.

It stung and it stuck, but it's not like she lost a real relationship. Just a fantasy, the longings of a friendless soul, the overlay of feelings onto a working partnership and (if she's honest) a bit of vestige hero-worship. Her lesson not quite learned yet, that expectations are never a recipe for satisfaction with a real person.

His first call was a surprise, given their final case weeks prior. His second was a painful reminder. The third made her angry, and the fourth and onward? She just stopped answering. She'd just have slammed down the receiver anyway. He had nothing to say to her and she had nothing to hear from him.

Slowly, the calls stopped coming, and Beckett became reasonably complacent with the expectation that it was over and she could live without the ghost of the man that was once the closest person on earth to her, the one she tried to let in when everyone else was blind to her. Or deliberately not looking.

This is why she does not hesitate to pick up on this particular evening as she walked into her sublet. She's only been in long enough to shuck off her plaid coat and to pin the business card from the riverside property manager to her refrigerator. She's setting her keys on the kitchen counter when it rings and she picks up without second thought, other than mild irritation at being bothered at this hour when her case is finally finished.

"Beckett," she answers neutrally, the exhaustion of the day boiling over at the prospect of even one more effort to make, even one as small as answering the phone. The gravelly voice on the other end makes what's already been a harrowing day that much worse.

"Hey, kid. Don't hang up yet, please."

* * *

_Please tell me what you think. We're headed into rough water here and I may be your Captain but you reviewers are my crew and your feedback assures that I don't, say, run us straight onto a sandbar and strand us with those idiots from Gilligan's Island._

_Did you know that you can sing the entirety of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" to the Gilligan's Island theme song? Now you do._


	10. Chapter 10

_I Think It's Wednesday_

* * *

She ducks out the moment they've alerted Montgomery that the case is closed and the greasy lawyer has been booked. Doesn't even bother to stay late and do paperwork as she usually does. Castle takes it as his cue to go home and spend some much-needed quality time with his family. As difficult as splitting with Beckett was – before they even got a chance to get off the ground – his family comes first. He can't go thinking about his own dramas until at the very least he hears how Alexis' audition went and has either celebrated or comforted her. And his mother, if the occasion calls for the latter. She will be far more upset than her granddaughter.

With a few polite bites of ice cream that he doesn't taste and a celebration of the serendipity of getting what one needs rather than what one wants, Castle watches helplessly as Alexis prances off to research stage managing, and his mother broods quietly on her failure to produce a son or a granddaughter with her passion for the stage. Finding nothing else to do, he retires to his office. He resigns himself to the foreseeable occupation of the rest of the night and begins to lick his wounds in private.

Pouring himself a glass of cinnamon whisky, Castle rotates it lazily and paces around the room several times. He ought to be tired. He's not quite sure what day it even is at this point, the emotional and physical strains of the week finally catching up to him. But he knows sleep won't come.

After considering his options, he angrily heaves himself into an overstuffed chair in the corner of his sanctuary, settling in the least uncomfortable position he can manage whilst spitefully glaring at the captain's chair at his desk and willing it away. He wishes to god that he could burn it and in doing so, purge himself of the memories stained into the leather in invisible ink. His bed is a problem too. And the shower. Fuck, the shower. Too bad that can't be moved or destroyed. Well, he can't move or destroy even the offending chair or bed either, he reasons. Burning furniture would make a considerable mess and certainly attract unwanted questions from the resident redheads.

How could he be so stupid? But he's always been one to look on the bright side, to find one where there isn't, and to resort to outright mockery if even that defense mechanism has failed him. Silver lining: at least now he knows where he stands. She doesn't want him. Not the way he wants her. Not in a way he can accept. He wishes he could, he wishes to god that he could accept it. That he could discard his feelings and indulge in the purely-carnal offering she so willingly left upon the table. But he can't. Exactly why, he's yet to figure out. But there's no time like the present – in company of his brooding and a drink – to try to get at that.

Was it stupidity, arrogance or sheer childish magical thinking that allowed him to think she could possibly feel the same way for him as he does for her? He tries desperately to ignore the dark voice in the back of his head that's becoming louder with each passing day, prodding him to define exactly what _does_ he feel for her that she's evidently not returning.

Perhaps his preoccupation with Beckett is an early mid-life crisis.

Forty-one. The number swirls around and clinks in the glass with his drink. Forty-one years. What does he really have to show for it, at the end of the day?

His books and characters are his amusement, what he's chosen to occupy his professional life with, and he loves every one of them in his own way (even Storm), but they don't keep him warm in the night. His books were the convergence of a natural imagination, luck and timing, an ability to play the publishing industry, and a bit of work. Though not particularly hard work.

He has a kid he doesn't deserve and has managed to build and maintain a semi-functional relationship with his mother; those are both things he is deeply grateful to have in his life, but not strictly achievements of his own. Martha's made just as much effort as he has in recent years – since his breakup with Gina, really – to repair their once-shaky relationship. And he certainly can't take full credit for Alexis – he rather suspects she's the product of latent good genes and her own will, along with an inner goodness that perhaps skipped two generations on both sides and concentrated into one redheaded wunderkind.

He has two failed marriages and one failed love behind him.

He has a host of friends who'd just as soon dump him if his books stopped entertaining them or if he took a significant financial hit. He has lots of women at his disposal (disposable, he supposes, is not a nice adjective, but if the shoe fits). He has easy entertainment if he wants, but easy has long-since lost its appeal.

He has a few real friends whose approval and place in his life are the rewards of actual hard work, personal change, growth in the last few years.

But his arrival at the 12th (however initially unwelcome and obligatory to its residents) and the relationships he's cultivated since, the good he's done, the small but meaningful legacy he's left on the city… that's _worthiness_. It's an alien feeling. He's earned that. He's worked harder than he's ever worked in his life to be good enough, smart enough, moral enough, to earn the detectives' respect and genuine friendship; to leave a small but indelible mark of good on the city he loves nearly as if it were a person (it is, in fact, his oldest and most constant friend), on the lives of the people who – like Beckett – have lost what they love most.

So, no, he won't leave the precinct. Beckett aside, he's too invested.

Maybe that's his mid-life crisis: playing cop.

Except it's not play any more. It hasn't been for a long time. Castle was willing to stand with Beckett from the day they got in the gunfight with the trafficker, to risk his life to give her a chance at getting out alive. He was prepared to die with her when he decided to stay after the man who killed her mother put a gun to his side. But it went beyond just Beckett, eventually. It was Ryan, Esposito, even Captain Montgomery. It was the city itself. Somewhere along the line, it wasn't enough to solve crimes on paper. He took a private oath to protect and serve, to do his utmost to be of use and service. He may not be a real cop (he forgets that at times, until incidents like being unarmed at the motel and letting Tyson escape remind him quite forcefully), but he can still do good. He can continue to mold himself, to be something good, something worth being proud of at last.

To this end, he will have to face Beckett sooner or later, and later will only give her time and distance to put between them. It hurts now, but if he's to stay, he'll have to learn to work with her and they'll have to learn to trust each other.

Well, he'll have to learn to trust her again. She's made it abundantly clear that she doesn't trust him. Not after all they've been through. Not after all this time. Not one iota.

There's nowhere to go with her now, if her opinion of him is as poor as her actions would suggest. Just thinking about it makes his blood boil. How did he misread her so badly? How could they – they who share a brain half the time, when it comes to work – be on such different pages?

It's not so much that she doesn't want a relationship. That much he was prepared to wait out. What hurts and bleeds and aches is that she's so utterly confounded at the idea of him caring more for her than just sex. As if she _expected_ him to just have his fun and leave her.

Oh.

But that's exactly what he's done, isn't it? It finally dawns on him as the anger and hurt cools to a simmer, replaced at last by logic and self-awareness. He walked out on her and didn't give her a chance to speak, he shut her down when she reached for him in the car, proverbially speaking. He's done exactly what she expected him to, confirmed her poor mistrusting heart's fear, helped her in her self-fulfilling prophecy, if he reads her correctly this time.

The desperation in her desire to please. The relationship with Josh. The way no one in her life seems to get the same version of her. The way she shuts herself down the moment they're alone together and molds herself into whatever form she thinks he'll find pleasing.

He piles together the cracker crumbs of knowledge he has of her life and her prior relationships.

He knows next to nothing about her world prior to her mother's death; only that with that, it seemed to crash down. It seems to have been happy and functional, from the way she talks. She was an only child, no mention of close cousins, so a lack of extended family and a close bond to her parents even above that of the peer group is probably a decent guess. She was a good girl. Alleged wildchild phase notwithstanding (he's still not seen the motorcycle _or_ the tattoo – and he looked pretty hard for the latter when she relaxed and spent an entire morning naked in his arms – so he wonders whether that may have been an exaggeration to goad him), the years between the minor mischief and few apparently normal high school romances her friend Maddie told him of during her school days, and the time her mother was murdered, seem wholly unremarkable.

And after that? She finished college, and apparently in good time. Joined the Academy immediately thereafter. Probably not a lot of time or desire for relationships there, and she doesn't seem the type to have had many one-night stands in her belt. Which brings him to life post-Academy. And to her first partner. Ah, now that has potential.

Royce rejected her advances; that much he knows. The guy may have been a crook, but Castle didn't get the impression that he was lying, when they went out for drinks the night he walked back into Beckett's life. He's grilled Castle about his intentions like a concerned friend – and it seems that is what he felt for her – and shared stories about the good ol' days, about the best recruit he'd ever trained. Half-drunk and nostalgic, he admitted she came onto him when she was drowning in grief and obsession.

'_I didn't wanna be her bottle to crawl down_,' he'd said.

Her next few years are, nearly three years into their partnership, a complete mystery to him. Her father dried up, eventually. She made detective at some point. And aside from that? Nothing. Montgomery and Esposito have hinted that she spent every spare moment in the archives, unwilling and unable to stop her spiral into obsession with her mother's case. She came dangerously close to burnout, maybe even went over the edge into it. It took her a year of therapy to let go of the case.

Somewhere along the line – post-therapy, he reasons; Ryan and Esposito both recognized the guy, and he's under the impression she was more stable by the time Ryan arrived – she must have met Sorenson, dated for some time, and from the little she told him, the Feeb chose Boston over Beckett. And allegedly acted surprised when _she_ wouldn't uproot her life to follow him. There had to have been at least a year between her break with Sorenson and his reappearance for the Candela case; she was at least somewhat over it. Enough to be able to work with him, anyway. But the hurt was still there. He heard it in the bitter resignation in her voice all the way back then. Sorenson chose the job.

As does Josh. As will Josh. And she lets him. She _likes_ that about him; something about dedication and blah blah. She doesn't. She can't _like_ that. She just thinks… she thinks it's easier. She thinks that's all she deserves, she thinks that's safe.

It's not safe, Castle shakes his head as if she's actually here in front of him. It's just sad. She's spent her entire adult life with one foot out the door in relationships. Though, given his history, barreling into them headfirst and dizzy is likely equally dysfunctional, if not an opposite-but-equal way of avoiding potential hurt.

Aromantically… now that's an entirely different can of worms, isn't it?

Obviously her mother's loss was a devastating and defining blow. That much has been clear from day one. She doesn't know who she is, if not the pursuant of justice for her mother (and, absent that case to work on, justice for others as a temporary substitute). She was so young; too young, really, to not become defined by a single horrific event. Her mother never would have chosen to leave her, but leave she did.

Her father, though. Castle can't help the swell of anger he feels toward the man, one he's never even met. He left her too. Down a bottle. For five years. She loves him, that much is clear, but Castle's certain she doesn't trust him. It's a sad reality, but he understands: once bitten, twice shy. Especially when it comes to addicts.

His brow furrows as he produces a sheet of scratch paper, mapping out a crude timeline of her life. There's not a lot of room for other relationships, if his assumptions about her lack of casual/incidental hookups and about the years she spent buried in the archives are correct. Which leads him to the uncomfortable conclusion that she's quite a bit less experienced than he once casually assumed based on her constant innuendo, natural flirtatiousness, and the hints about knowledge he's now not quite sure is first hand.

As the city outside dims from a twinkling galaxy of artificial stars to a landscape dotted with beacons for the hopeless and the lonely, Castle finds himself hours into his examination of his partner's life and the potential motivations for her actions. He comes up certain of only one thing: nobody's ever chosen Kate.

He understands better, now. He's never been anyone's prize. The stage called. London called. The director called. Better opportunities called. He's survived it with no shortage of issues of his own, but Beckett has just as many, on top of the ones surrounding her mother's case, the horrors she's dealt with daily since she was a young woman and still developing a view of the world. According to his timeline, she couldn't have been more than 21 or 22 when she became a cop. His world has been stable, if not always perfect. Hers, though... her life has been a freefall of nightmares to chase down dark alleys the entirety of her adult years, and one rejection after another from people she trusted.

No one's put him first, and nobody's ever put Kate first either. Not over their own interests. Not over their jobs. Not over their vices.

And not over their wounded pride.

* * *

The surprise to see him is written all over her face when he turns up at the precinct, 8AM sharp. Clearly she expected him to be done with her (those were, regrettably, his words – he can't take them back, and she'd not accept it right now if he did) and done with the precinct as well. Neither will be the case, not if he has anything to do with it. He's already resolved to stay on at the 12th, no matter what, but he's not done with her. Not by a long shot. He'll just have to keep showing up. It will take time, before his apology is accepted, but she hasn't kicked him out, so there's reason for hope. He'll just keep coming back, keep proving to her that he's not going to run, that he's not the one who'll take her for what she offers and leave her in halves.

Flustered, she takes his coffee with the look of a polite adult who's just been presented with a child's beloved, warty toad. Murmuring a robotic thank-you, she keeps her eyes resolutely on her paperwork and promptly banishes him to the archives.

A slow day begets slow work, but once into it, Castle finds he doesn't mind. Philadelphia called and asked for the NYPD to look through its cold files for homicides in the 1990s matching a maddeningly non-descript M.O., and without an active case to work, they've finally gotten around to it. Simply glad to still be welcomed at work, Castle shifts into research mode and loses himself in the solitude of the cold files, developing his own system rather quickly and slipping into the flow of work.

"Castle?" he jolts, spins around from the desk he's been working at, a 'maybe' file he's been combing for detail. Ryan blinks from the doorway. "Sorry, didn't mean to startle you."

Castle waves him off. "It's fine. What's up?"

"You've been down here all morning," Ryan remarks with the air of one fishing for detail but unwilling to ask outright, "Beckett said to come ask you if you wanted to ride along. Out to pick up lunch. You in?"

His stomach gives a loud growl and he's left little choice. Though, fresh air and some natural light (even in the drizzle of a New York autumn day) sound good anyway. Shrugging, he agrees. Beckett's mood must have softened beyond his original hope, if she cared enough to remind him about lunch. Even if she sent Ryan to do it for her.

"Sure."

In the confines of the car, the two men catch up on the polite details of each others' lives – safe topics. Alexis; Jenny. The damn Knicks who couldn't locate their own asses with a toilet seat last weekend, let alone keep a handle on the ball. Once that is established, the conversation dwindles naturally, leaving them in easy silence as the traffic stalls with businessmen and union workers alike heading back to the job after lunch.

"So, what'd you do to piss off Beckett?" Ryan asks from the driver's seat, as if this is all part of casual conversation.

Castle jerks, but recovers quickly. From Ryan's raised eyebrow, not quickly enough.

"Why do you think I've pissed her off?" he asks instead, hoping to gauge what the detective has found out or at the least guessed at.

"When I first joined homicide, I got overzealous with a suspect in interrogation and kept questioning him after he asked for a lawyer. Ended up with a confession inadmissible in court. Standard in narcotics, but that don't fly under Montgomery. I was sent to the colds for a week."

He's not sure where this story is going, but the good thing is, Ryan is not angry at _him_, so he likely doesn't understand the context of the coolness from Beckett, only that it exists. This he can work with, perhaps even play to his advantage. As far as Ryan's concerned, he could have simply made a particularly bad joke to get himself banished, or changed the cruiser's radio station one too many times.

"So this is the standard punishment? I'm surprised I haven't spent three-quarters of my time there," Castle remarks glibly, to Ryan's chortle.

"Yep," Ryan confirms, but presses again, "what'd you do this time?"

Castle shrugs again, figuring it's best to evade answering rather than tell an outright lie – even a small one – to a detective and the precinct's resident gossip. "Dunno. She's been stressed since the Tyson case, must have done something to set her off."

Ryan nods sympathetically, distracted by the mention of Tyson more than anything else as his fingers unconsciously trace the back of his head where the psycho pistol-whipped him. Chef Ho's and the promise of steamed pork buns is a welcome distraction, and Ryan digs into one the moment they pack back into the cruiser.

"Beckett's been on edge for weeks, come to think of it," Ryan brings up conversationally as the rain grows steadier and the traffic slows. Talking between bites, he blabbers on. "Not surprised if she blew up at you. Man, before you came along, Espo and I couldn't take a piss without being sent to the colds or made to go door-to-door like Girl Scouts. She was a dragon."

Castle is intrigued. He's not heard this, though he guessed as much. She turned all the charms of a snapping turtle on him in the beginning, and it stood to reason that he was simply a more annoying target than whomever was on the end of it before his arrival. Perhaps if he presses for detail, plays dumb, he can secure an informant in Ryan.

"Really?" he asks curiously, "And here I thought it was just my particular brand of irresistible that brought that out."

Ryan bites.

"Ah, man. She wasn't that bad normally, but when she gets stressed... One time she got in it with that Sorenson guy – near the end of their run – and she wasn't even in charge of us back then, but you know. We couldn't breathe funny without her getting angry. She had us dumpster diving for days. In July."

He nods sympathetically, secretly overjoyed with the in this has just provided him.

"So she gets cranky when her personal life is rocky?"

"Man, you don't know the half of it," the Irishman gushes, his mouth working before his common sense, "I mean, we figure she doesn't get out much, but when things were bad with Sorenson, they were worse on us. He was a real tool to her."

"How so?" Castle cuts in.

"Well, you didn't hear it from me, but Espo said he thought the guy was controlling. You know, never wanted her to come out for drinks, belittled Espo and I in front of her. Big FBI jerk. Always talked for her when they were together. He wanted her to pick up her life and move to Boston, you know? When they broke up, talking to her was like kicking a wasp's nest. But even that was nothing compared to when she broke up with Demming for-"

Ryan stops cold, realizing belatedly that he's said more than he intended, that his mouth has run with him and not given his common sense a chance to catch up. Castle schools his face into neutral bewilderment.

"Broke up with Demming for?" he prompts, eager for this missing piece in his puzzle. He always wondered what Demming did. Or what Beckett did. She's not said a word about the Robbery detective since his return, so he naturally assumed they broke up at some point over the summer, but there was no talk around the espresso machine about some big blowup, and the moments they've passed Demming in the halls of the precinct have been nothing but cordial since, so he assumed they'd just not worked out and parted without significant trauma to either.

The younger detective considers him for a moment with confusion, followed by scrutiny as if he's suddenly realized this conversation was not quite as off-the-cuff as he'd been led to believe, then evidently makes some kind of decision.

"She broke up with Demming. For you. And you showed up minutes later with your ex-wife."

Well. Shit.

* * *

_Back in the saddle again; apologies for the delay. Please tell me what you think. Comments, questions, concerns, complaints and constructive criticisms are always welcomed and appreciated._


	11. Chapter 11

_The Evening_

* * *

Six o'clock rolls around and she's neither seen nor heard Castle in hours. Since lunch, in fact, and that was only with Ryan to drop her eggrolls and broccoli and beef on her desk quickly before retreating to the archives. The boring day is wearing on her, and has already pushed the boys into full-adolescent mode. Castle is surely going crazy.

Could he have slipped out without her notice?

Ryan and Espo hover over their desk, shooting a paper football at one another and giggling like pre-adolescent schoolboys over a cold file featuring porn star Jinxxx Jiggler: suspect in the grisly, Bobbitt-esque murder of part-time-boyfriend/full-time-douchebag Captain Adam Spreadem.

"Do you think he was a real Captain?" Ryan asks lightly, "he must have realized just a second before she shot him that he was missing a Private."

Esposito shifts uncomfortably and glares at his partner, "don't joke about that shit, bro. In the mil-"

Beckett has heard quite enough. "Honestly! You two have all the maturity of a couple of twelve-year-olds turned loose in a condom factory!"

A split second of silence is hers until the inevitable floodgates open and Beckett realizes with a sweep of self-directed anger that she has said precisely the wrong thing and made it infinitely worse. Esposito breaks first, his face ballooning like a puffer fish in an attempt to hold back his outburst, then breaking open with heaving gasps and whooping gales of laughter.

Ryan follows shortly, squeaking out, "field trip?" before doubling over himself, stopped only by the choking on his own stupid laughter. Espo thumps him on the back with entirely unnecessary force, causing Ryan to shove his partner in return, and Beckett considers a stiff drink despite the early hour.

"Get out of here," she snaps irritably, "come back when you've hit puberty and can act accordingly!"

Esposito howls all the way to the elevator.

When they're finally gone and she's at last rid of the sound of their ringing laughter, her mood dissipates and Beckett packs her things for the night, feeling for once satisfied by the stack of finished paperwork. The lack of items clogging her inbox is a relief and brings a sense of accomplishment, a reward for her day of boredom and putting up with the boys' juvenile antics. But she doesn't follow the other detectives out the usual route to the parking lot. Instead, she trudges down to the archives. It wouldn't be right to leave Castle alone at the precinct. Hell, it wouldn't be safe for the precinct to leave Castle alone in it after hours. Imagine the damage he could do unsupervised.

The light is on, and when she quietly pushes open the windowed door, a soft humming greets her. For a moment, she just listens, realizing she's not heard this since their first weeks together, when he went through a phase of humming his infernal personal action theme. It's... pleasant. But he's been down here all day, and – according to Ryan's weirdly-nervous report – making decent headway on procuring the possible matches for Philadelphia. He doesn't see or hear her approach as she weaves through the filing cabinets to come upon the single desk he's working diligently at. It's a desk she's intimately familiar with, for her years spent in the same space late at night, interrupted only by Royce's threats to rat on her if she didn't go home, or Montgomery's annoyingly close watch, later on. But with Castle seated at it, it doesn't look quite so daunting, any more.

No, she scolds herself. Musn't think like that. He's still angry, he's got to be. She's still not sure what she did, but it doesn't matter. She's got the message – signed, sealed, delivered. The best she can hope for, since he's evidently still keen on donating his time to the precinct, is a return to the partnership they rebuilt from the ashes of the summer.

_Don't go there_, she schools herself.

"Hey," Kate croaks, her voice inappropriately strangled for the causality in the greeting. Castle inhales sharply and jumps in his seat, lost in the work to the point that his natural observation and attunement to his surroundings was dimmed.

"Kate," he stutters out, turning around to face her. "Hi."

"Quittin' time," nodding toward the door, she motions him to follow. He doesn't. "What gives, Castle?"

He sighs tiredly. "I've only got a few more of this stack," he motions to what is indeed only a few files, and she takes in the surprisingly well-organized system he's come up with. She'd assumed sending him to the colds would mean a day full of him goofing off, coming up to the 4th floor to ask questions or interfere with paperwork or join Ryan and Esposito in their exploits, but he's not.

"It'll be here tomorrow," she replies.

"It'll be ready to send off to Philadelphia tomorrow," argues Castle, his expression obstinate as he turns back to the files. She wonders if she's stepped into some kind of comic book Bizarro World where Castle is refusing to leave what is by all appearances boring work, and she's attempting to pull him out of it at a reasonable time.

"Fine," Kate remarks primly, wandering through the shelving until she finds the ancient fold-up chair she's equally well-acquainted with, used as step-stool and makeshift desk alike over the years. She drags it over to the desk and sits opposite him, watching with satisfaction as his face contorts with dark amusement.

"What are you doing?"

"Bugging you at work. Annoying, isn't it?"

It's past quitting time and he's not doing anything of particular interest. Nor – against precedent and expectation – is he in any apparent mood to cause trouble for her or the precinct. What that says about her that she'd rather sit and watch him thumb through cold files than go home, she doesn't quite want to think about at length.

Castle gives her his best Tom Sawyer grin, contrary by nature and necessity. "Nope!"

And with that, he returns quite diligently to the file in front of him, easily ignoring her presence. She feels a wave of irrational annoyance at it. All he has to do is be in the same room to distract her when she's trying to work, but he just goes right on scanning the reports and evidence photos for detail, like she's not even there. But then, he's a writer. And a father. Little Alexis must have been a constant distraction, and he still managed to cram 15 books into her first 10 years of life.

Not that she knows what year each book was published, or that it was indeed his most prolific period. Not that she wonders why he switched to essentially pulp with Storm, when his prior books came out faster and were... well, better. Darker, but better. But regardless, he's still managed a book per year since he started shadowing her, so it stands to reason that with both a teenage daughter and a rather distracting mother in his house, and work at the precinct, he's more than capable of knuckling down when necessary. She's just never seen him apply it to this sort of work.

She misses him. It's okay when she has work to occupy her. It's when she gets home and feels the absence of distraction in Josh and the looming threat of remnant grief that she misses him. Not just in the physical sense – though she certainly didn't want that to end as prematurely as it did – but simply his presence and the closeness they'd been building before she went full Nikki and screwed things up. She felt him and reflexively pushed away – pushed him away with all her might by pulling him close and making him do wonderful, wicked things with her, to keep him from looking any deeper. It didn't work. It just made him more curious and she panicked, but evidently he saw something he didn't like. And that's that.

Watching him waffle with the file between heaping it onto the 'maybe' pile and the 'return to filing' pile, she wonders why. Why he's here. He's a bestselling author. Bestselling authors don't belong in precincts, searching the cold files at the bidding of the Philly PD. Bestselling authors don't need to stick around when there's no body or bizarre case, no inspiration to be found in the streets or between the sheets. Bestselling authors with an unending carousel of shiny options don't keep homicide detectives around, not for very long, anyway.

He blows hot and cold with her. He asks her to go away with him, and then shows up and parades Gina in front of her. He tells her he's keeping her, and then he's done with her. He tells her he'll wait, and then he can't stay because he wants more, and she still doesn't understand what offended him so badly. She was giving him what she thought he wanted, what they've been dancing around since the first day they met.

He's done. He said he was done. She knew he meant with her, but she assumed he'd leave the precinct too.

But here he is. He does everything they do, every day. Minus paperwork. Not that she can legitimately allow him to do it, but it's the only thing separating his job from theirs any more, the last barb in her arsenal when she starts thinking of him as an indispensible, real member of the team, as her full equal and partner. And now that he's proven quite capable of handling the cold files and seems for whatever reason bent on hanging around the precinct even when there's no case and she sends him away, there's even less a distinction. The lack of the gun at his side and the wording on his vest, that's all. And the former, she's not so sure will be a permanent thing. Montgomery pulled her aside days after the confrontation with Tyson in the motel and asked if she thought Castle ought to be armed. She said no, back then. She told the Captain it would endanger him, if a suspect could take Ryan's gun they could surely take one off Castle (though she's not so sure of that), and he accepted it at the time. The truth was, she said no because it would make it too real.

It still needles at her, why he does this. A self-absorbed part of her says it's because of her, and that would have been easier to believe weeks earlier when playful flirtation was becoming unbearable, when the feelings she worked so hard to kill and bury and encase in the concrete of her heart came ripping back to life. When he – with the bigshot publisher ex-wife/girlfriend – rode back into her safe and sterile life and began quite shamelessly taking up residence in her world again, she thought this playing cop thing might have been about getting at her all along. But then... he said he'd stay. That he'd find another precinct to join. So it's not solely about her. Maybe it was more in the beginning, before he had enough for Nikki Heat – and what happens to Nikki if he joins another precinct? The thought of her literary alter-ego being as finished as they are hurts in some distant way – but now? He's here on his own will. He could fill a lifetime of books with his knowledge of procedure and bizarre cases. He's seen more than most lifers ever well. And he keeps coming back.

"Why're you here?" she blurts out. Great. Acting without thinking has a phenomenally bad track record for her lately; she might as well make it even worse.

"Because there's only a few files left and I'm not going to hold up the request for another day. If there's no new case tomorrow, then we'll be able to move on to something else," Castle says simply, though his tight tone tells her he knows that wasn't what she was asking.

"No, Castle," she pushes against her better judgment, "why are you _here?" _

Jackass makes his reappearance, a smug smirk slipping into place as he momentarily abandons his work.

"Well, 'here' can mean so many things. Why am I at this desk? Because it's more comfortable than the floor. Why am I in this room? Because you sent me here and because it has easy access to all these files. Why are any of us here? Who knows. Are we the playthings of some holy puppetmaster, designed for his or her own amusement and glorification, or are were here simply because there's been an unbroken chain of things surviving since the first single-cell-" she cuts him off with a repressed growl.

"Why are you still working with us, and sticking around for even boring work like this?"

She can see the gears of his mind turning, looking for a way out of the question. Finding he's apparently out of ammunition in his arsenal of sarcasm, he heaves a sigh.

"Because it's a calling. If you want to call it that. What drives anyone to this work? Cops have only a few fundamental reasons for doing what they do: the first – and simplest – is that it's what their daddy did and his daddy before him too. It's what his uncle did and his brother did, _et cetera._ It's why the farmer runs the same patch of fallow land, and why the would-be next Einstein ends up running her parents' Korean grocery store. The second – they're thugs and brutes who like the idea of the power of the badge and the protection of the boys' club to get them out of any trouble they get into. Third, some just have a basic goodness and want to make things better, want a safer world in which to live with their families and take it upon themselves to assure that – that's Ryan's type. And the final reason – your reason, my reason – is that they cannot do otherwise."

Kate blinks at him, knocked back and thrown off balance by the right hook of his deconstruction.

"I started following you because I wanted the story, yes," he continues evenly, though his eyes still burn in the low light of the dingy archives room with something darker, something more determined, "and because I rather liked you-" liked, past tense; her heart sinks, "-but it's not about that any more. I do like working with you, but if that's no longer an option, I like what I'm doing enough to find another department that'll have me. It's... I've gone a lot of my life without purpose, Kate."

Without purpose? He loves writing. He has a great family. How could he possibly lack purpose?

"I'm halfway through the game, and the night you pulled me in for questioning about the murders, you know what I was thinking?"

She assumed it was about who was going to warm his bed that night. Because that was the safest way to think of him at the time, and she hadn't quite wanted to give it up even in the years since, despite evidence to the contrary of his character.

When he receives no answer, he tells her. "I was thinking that I was thirty-nine and bored out of my skull. With my career. I'd done it. My head's pretty big. Bigger back then," he admits with a self-deprecating snigger, "but I've never been under the delusion that I'm the Shakespeare of the generation. If I wasn't a writer, I wouldn't be what I am. Wouldn't be me. But I didn't want that to be all of me. I certainly didn't want Derrick-fucking-Storm to be my legacy."

"Why not?" she asks, wanting him to keep talking.

"Because Derrick Storm was me playing soldiers and pushing all the things I wished I was onto a character. I shadowed CIA agents, for him and for Strike." She feels a ping to her radar at that – Strike's inspiration? Obviously a woman. Ergo, a female CIA agent, most likely. Ergo... - but he keeps going and rising insecurities or not, she needs to hear it. "It was never hands-on work though." Oh, she just _bets_ it wasn't. "I didn't do anything real there."

Castle rests his chin in his palm, tossing the file onto the 'maybe' pile at last in favor of considering her alone.

"This work is real, to me. I know I don't have police power, but I'd like to think I've... helped. I'd like to think I'll do something that will matter in the long run, that I'll leave something besides my books and Alexis when I'm gone."

Kate stays quiet, waits patiently for once for him to continue. It's a while before he does.

"I don't want to wake up in 20, 30 years, with-" he pauses, as if fighting for the right words, uncharacteristic of the author who's always got the right turn of phrase, "I don't want the regrets of a life spent seeking the shallow."

Not knowing what the proper response to such a statement, Beckett nods, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth. She doesn't understand him. She understands him less this way than she did when he was the simple, vapid playboy writer: spinner of pretty tales and resident thorn in her side and occasional provider of helpful insights.

"How can you be so happy, doing this?" she finally asks, the question having been on her mind since their first cases together and better than the dozen others in the category of 'them' that she wanted very badly to avoid.

He's had cases that took him down, shook him, but he manages to bounce back in a way she can hardly comprehend. He retains an innocence about him, despite seeing and fully understanding the ugliness around him. She didn't have one year on the force before the weight of life settled into her, made her into the urban champion of her jaded kingdom. He's still managed to keep the shine on his armor. Mostly.

Castle shrugs. "I've spent my entire adult life finding ways of being happy. I have sources of happiness – playing around, writing, the freedom my career gives me to spend time and money as I please – but happiness is temporary. The only meaning life had was Alexis, and you know, kids grow up. They need you less and less. And you eventually have to find something else to fill that purpose. It wasn't in the beginning, but now, working in homicide – playing cop – is meaningful to me. Challenges, fun, highs, lows, but it's something more than what I ever had before. Meaning without happiness is a quest," he looks sadly at her and it feels like a stinging slap, "but happiness without meaning is empty."

He rises up at last, throwing the final file decidedly into the 'return' pile. Stretching his limbs with a grating crack in his shoulders, he pulls her up on offered hand.

"And that, detective," he drawls slowly, and she knows on instinct his next words, "is why I'm here."

They've come full circle, it seems. Him drawing her story out, cold-reading her to pieces because he thought it'd impress her, in the beginning when first they created them. Now she's drawn his. Well, some of it, anyway.

"Come on," Castle chirps, more cheerful and a little like his usual self, "dinner. Come over."

"Oh, no-" she starts, but he interrupts.

"Yes. Just dinner," he clarifies, though whether for her or for himself, she's unsure. "Vegetarian lasagna. Better than it sounds. Come on, Alexis and my mother would love to see you."

Her resolve wavers. It _is_ just dinner. And she doesn't want to go home. Not yet. She doesn't want to face another half-hearted apology on her recorder from Josh, or worse, an attempt at explanation from Royce. She doesn't want her murder board or her lonely books tonight. For a few more hours. And his family never fails to lift her spirits, to make her laugh and smile.

"Okay."

It's just dinner with his family, and she's still got no idea where they stand, but he doesn't let go of her hand until they reach the parking lot.

* * *

_So, shorter chapter, but it needed to be done. We're about 1/3 of the way in. How are you all finding the pacing of the story and progression of the characters, so far?_

_Comments, questions, concerns, complaints and constructive criticisms are always appreciated._


	12. Interlude

It's obviously nothing. Just dinner. Just colleagues. She watches for a few minutes, unwilling to announce her presence just yet. She's a fly on the wall for now, just watching the family and their guest have dinner together.

The visitor is shy, but happy enough. Alexis hangs on her every word, looks at her like she's hung the moon. Martha laughs raucously at some anecdote they tell in sync – bouncing and riffing off each other like a practiced comedy duo - about life on the street. Without exchanging words, they pass salt, or grate parmesan cheese, or refill a glass of ice water. Naturally, easily. Like they've shared a thousand meals. Like this is something they do.

There's nothing inappropriate about a single action. Nothing even remotely suggestive, in fact. Not the way he waits patiently for her to finish talking, face rested in his palm, genuine interest written in his features rather than the carefully-schooled smile-and-nod act he cultivated long ago with his adoring public. Not in the way he practically forces the crispy corner slice onto her, to her laughing protest. Not in the way she childishly twists his ear when he's caught elaborating some detail of their story, until he admits the truth that – okay, okay, that _wasn't_ how it went and he _didn't_ take down five armed thugs alone.

It's all completely normal.

But then, why does she feel like she's spying on something intensely private, even while the resident redheads seem to find nothing unusual about this? It must not be a novel way for them to behave together. Why does she feel like an intruder in this place, that once she called her home?

_And why do these little moments – which are so obviously nothing – seem so…_

She pauses. Hasn't got a word for what it looks like. Not, at least, until the fingers that twisted his ear soothe it momentarily, and absently drag through the short hair at the back of his neck on their way down, before settling politely back in her lap.

Suddenly unable to keep watching a single second longer of this, she clears her throat, makes her presence known as she strides into the open-concept family room and tries to ignore the way the writer and the detective scoot several inches apart in a hell of a hurry.

_Intimate._

* * *

_Hate me yet?_

_Real chapter will come in a few days._


	13. Chapter 12

_The Mess We're In_

* * *

"Gina, hey!" Castle croaks and Beckett's six inches further away from him than she was a second ago. He doesn't like that. That's not how this was supposed to go, and he barely resists the urge to tug her close again, in spite of the horrendous circumstances. The blonde sturts in at a clip, all business, and he wonders how long she was standing there. And why of all days she decided today was the day she'd test out whether or not her key still worked.

"Well, I can see that you're busy," her voice is surprisingly without its usual edge, more insecure, and he finds he's deeply uncomfortable with this version of his ex-wife, who – no matter the circumstance – has always been of swift bite and utmost confidence, "I just came by to share the good news. You got the go-ahead with the, 'creative meddling' you wanted on Heat Wave. They're going to cut the uh-" she glances pointedly at him, then to Beckett – "_sex scene_, from the script as requested."

Every eye in the room is on him. Beckett's are suddenly narrowed. Alexis tilts her head and considers them with an expression frighteningly similar to Beckett's clue face. Martha, though – Martha regards him with the look only a mother can give. The 'good luck digging yourself out of this,' look, her finely sculpted brows quirked in anticipation of the show even Broadway couldn't provide.

"Uh…" Castle stammers, "great. Great. That should bump it down to a PG-13 rating. Make it more attractive for families, you know."

"I'm sure mom and pop will have no objections bringing Junior along as long as it's just grisly violence and the criminal underworld they'll be exposed to and not casual sex."

It flies out of his mouth without forethought, without permission. "It's not casual."

Gina still glares at him, and Beckett is overly curious about this development (he doesn't even have to look at her to know her gears are turning, trying to work out what this means). Standing in front of Beckett, placing himself unconsciously between her and his ex-wife, he says nothing, and she doesn't move from where she stands. He's trying to work out the potential damage of shooting first in a standoff, but he gets no chance.

"Sit down, Gina, dear!" Martha chimes, and the moment is, at last, broken as Gina awkwardly accepts and Castle hurries to pour her a glass of ice water. His peace, however, does not last, as Alexis is _very_ interested indeed in continuing the discussion about the Heat Wave movie.

"You're cutting the scene between Nikki and Rook? Why'd you cut that one? That's the scene everyone at school talks about," Alexis "Traitor" Castle protests between bites of her lasagna. Castle would very much like it if a sinkhole sized for one would open up below his feet right about now.

Beckett prods. "Oh, really? Did you hear that, Castle? The people have spoken."

"Yes," he grumps. "They have. I _am_ the people in this case and _I've_ spoken. My book, my rights to decide what goes in the script. It's all there in the fine print."

Alexis is not letting go, and he's never been a seen-and-not-heard parent, but it sounds like a very good idea at the moment. "But that's the best scene. Nikki and Rook make a totally cute couple and no one's going to be interested in it if you leave that out." It's quite clear that she's not talking about Nikki and Rook at all, and Castle regards her with his best Mad-Dad look, though it doesn't go very far.

"You're no fun," she quips with a pout. No, he's not, but clearly _she's_ having fun anyway (she's the only one here who is), and he doesn't like this game at all. He knows things haven't been great between Alexis and Gina. Not lately – not ever, really, though the first go around was more his fault than that of either his daughter or his ex-wife – but the pointed effort to bait her, and in front of Beckett too…

"She's right, sex does sell," and this is new. Gina, in Alexis' corner? Her mind is all on business, again, and he thanks his lucky stars it is, because when she's in business mode, she notices nothing else. The publicist shakes her head, her mouth pressing into a thin line of annoyance and glaring at him across the table. "Your grave, Rick."

"Already there, _dear_," he snipes back, spitting the last syllable like a dirty swear.

Alexis casts her eyes downward and resumes interest in her meal as if this is normal – she did, unfortunately, live with him and Gina and all their problems for far too long, a period of insanity he regrets deeply now – and a quick glance to Beckett at his side confirms his suspicion as to her mood. She looks quite predictably like a deer trapped in the headlights, her eyes wide and darting to the exit, her entire body leaned away from Gina at an angle indicating the exact direction she'd like to go.

"Would you like some lasagna?" Alexis asks Gina, her tone prickly but pin-point polite. "I made it." Gina looks as if she's been offered a plate of writhing grubs.

"No thank you," the blonde says curtly.

He spends the entirety of the next twenty minutes – which may as well pass as days – listening to painfully polite small-talk (largely between Martha and Gina, with a barb thrown in here and there from Alexis). At last, the levee gives.

"I should get going. I have a dinner meeting at nine; I just thought you'd like an update," Gina excuses herself awkwardly. Kate's shoulders drop in relief.

Castle's chair practically flies out from under him in his haste to stand, see her to the door, to get rid of her and placate her at once. He follows a pace behind, nearly crashing into her when she stops to address the remaining parties.

"Nice to see you again, Martha-" the actress nods, her head still cocked in keen interest, "Lex-" in a fit of uncharacteristic rudeness, Alexis does not look up from her food, nor from the phone that's made its way onto the table. "Detective Beckett."

"N-nice to see you too," Beckett chirps, her voice higher than is quite natural to her, and Castle can't chance looking at her, because if he does, he's sure to say or do something incredibly stupid, and he feels he's about made his quota for that tonight.

"I'll see you out. Do you need a cab?" he asks pleasantly, and when they round the corner into the hallway, he sees her relax noticeably, regret written in her still-tense features.

"No. Sorry, I just didn't expect you to have friends over on a weekday," she explains in a rush. "I shouldn't have barged in."

She's evidently decided that what she saw was nothing. And it was – right then, at least, it was nothing – this time. She's back to herself, mostly. His family always seems to bring out the worst in her, and in turn, in him when she's around.

"It's fine," he lies effortlessly, and when did lying to her become his default state? "We just had a long week at work." That much is certainly true.

Gina sidles closer, putting an arm around his shoulder and hanging halfway on him.

"Rick," she draws his name out plaintively, "you've got to stop playing cops and robbers some time, you know. You're a writer, and it's distracting you from that. Why don't we go out on Saturday? A little business, a little pleasure? Just you and me?" The last statement, if his six years of marriage to her is any reminder, is code for _without your kid_. "Detective Beckett can do without you for a day. I'm sure she'll save some crime scene photos for you if someone gets offed."

His anger flares at that. But he's not going to bother explaining his role at the 12th to her, or why he does it, or that despite his occasional inappropriate glee at going to see a dead body (read: going to see Beckett over a dead body), people do not just 'get offed.' But she doesn't get it. He didn't get it either, until he was months into his work with the precinct. So it's unfair to expect her to understand his world – the one he shares with Beckett and his other partners - now. If she wants to think he's some casual hanger-on, a curious male version of a badge bunny, then he'll let her. It's certainly easier than trying to explain it or get her to sympathize with the real possibility that her golden goose might get shot down like one of his own characters, some day.

"Sure," he agrees curtly to their working-date. She seems pleased, in a way not unlike a teacher is pleased with a rare cooperative student. With a quick peck to his cheek, she's already tapping it into her phone's calendar, filled with brightly color-coded appointments and deadlines. He can take her out to a casual lunch and end things there, removed from his family. "Goodnight."

She's already down the hall when the door closes.

Castle takes a deep breath, trying to gain control over his temper as he turns back to face what remains of the evening. He'll deal with Alexis and her attitude later; his immediate concern is Beckett.

It's easy enough to handle, he finds; Alexis has retired to her room already, and Martha is working at the dishes and warding off Beckett's attempts to help.

"Beckett?" he requests evenly, "Why don't we let her do the dishes. She doesn't cook, after all."

"Hah, hah!" Martha crows airily, giving a sharp look to her son over her shoulder, "I would if you'd let me!"

Thankfully, it's enough of a dismissal for Beckett, and she follows him willingly to his office. He kicks the door behind them, intending to apologize for how the night turned out. He doesn't have time to get so much as a single syllable out. The door clicks shut and she's on him at once, lips moving heatedly and forcefully against his own. Her hands roam him rapidly, touching every inch of him she can, and he can't decide whether to push her away or push her against the wall and lean into her, regain control and pour his frustrations into her mouth.

She breaks for air.

"Mine," she growls, something blazingly angry and feral and inexplicably turned-on in her eyes.

And how can he argue? He can't deny it. He's hers. And she's his. Even if she won't accept that second part yet, she's _his._ An unwanted mental image of her with Doctor Do-Gooder and he crashes his mouth back to hers. Gripping her shoulders, he steers her strategically away from the bookshelf-wall and any prying eyes that might happen by, and her tongue slides across his teeth, begging entrance he grants gladly. Castle suppresses a groan, tasting her, drinking her in. Desperate explorations become claiming bites and nips, and he gives her every bit as good as she's giving. _His._

Until she breaks the moment, pulls away from him with one final drag of her teeth across his bottom lip.

"'Night, Castle," she sighs. "See you tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow," he confirms dazedly. There's going to be a tomorrow. The night's gone worse than Christmas dinner on a sit-com, but there's still tomorrow, and she's kissed him and called him hers, and she still wants him at work, and he's not being kicked to the curb even though they're another layer into the trenches of fuck-up.

But he's always been one to push boundaries. He tests his good fortune.

Catching her as she reaches for the door handle, Castle whirls her around, kissing her soundly and invading her mouth. Can't let her get away with getting the jump on him _twice,_ without surprising her even once.

"Mine," he promises, and with that – before she has time to object his counter-claim – he opens the door and prowls back into the family room, forcing her to follow him. If this is her game, he will play it.

Helping her into her coat without a word between them – only playful glances and the lingering touch when he pulls her hair out from under the collar – he sends her on her way and sees her out the door. Castle heaves a sigh of relief that the day is over. Or so he thought.

"You two would make _such_ a cute couple," his daughter's amused, too-chipper voice drawls from the stairs.

* * *

_World's most awkward dinner party?_

_Shorter chapter, but it seemed a natural stopping point. Thank you for your continued support and response, I love hearing what you think and the different interpretations of what's going on._


	14. Chapter 13

_City Sun Set Over Me, II_

* * *

It's easy to forget, at times, that Alexis is only seventeen. He remembers this fact quite easily, now. Seated at the kitchen island and facing his daughter's raised eyebrow, it becomes apparent that her world still largely consists of black and white, good and bad, love and hate. She thinks they'd make a cute couple, _ergo_, they should be a couple and live happily ever after. It's just that simple to her.

"Alexis," he says sternly, tiring of the merry-go-round discussion, "you need to not meddle in my affairs." He winces. Wrong choice of word. Very wrong choice of word.

"I just don't understand _why,_" Alexis argues sullenly. "Gina made you miserable when you were married, and she made you miserable all summer. Why are you still with her if you have like twelve years of making each other miserable?"

Castle feels a migraine coming on.

"Because it's not that simple. We don't make each other miserable all the time." Just all the time when Alexis is around. And a good portion of the time she's not. "Alexis, Gina is not a bad person. She made mistakes and I made bigger ones the first time around, and I'm sorry you had to deal with that. I'm sorry. But you can't hold that against her."

Alexis' furious eyes and the stubborn, Beckett-like set of her mouth tell him she can and would very much like to.

"You can't hold it against her without holding it against me, too. You were too little to understand what was going on, but she did make an effort with you. She really did. Even before we were dating. The first time. I..." Castle struggles for words to make this sound better, and can't think of any, "I kept her from getting close to you because I was afraid she'd leave and let you down." And him. She'd leave him, too.

"Like Mom," Alexis says sadly, some of the anger dying down at last. "But why now?"

Why, indeed. "Sometimes you need to give people a second chance. Put the past in the past." It's an empty and hollow platitude, and Alexis recognizes it instantly.

"Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is the definition of insanity."

"But I-"

"Do you love her?" Gina? Does he? He thinks for a moment. He cares for her. Not as much as she deserves, but he does. They have a history. She's safe. Now that Alexis is older, she's safe to be around. Mostly. He knows what to expect – even the unpleasant parts – and it makes life much easier to sort out when he can predict what's coming. Good times with Gina are good. They're pleasant and pastel-tinted sweetness, with all the prettiness and depth of a Hallmark greeting card. And bad times are not too bad. Her badgering and sniping has long-since failed to get a rise of him, beyond a snappy comeback or two. He can deal with her anger and not take it personally.

"See?" Alexis states sharply. "If you have to take this long to answer, you obviously don't."

She's right and his temper threatens to rise again because he doesn't like that. "Alexis, that's enough!" he snaps, "What I do in my personal life is none of your business!"

"It is when you keep bringing Gina back into my life, and expecting us to be best buddies, like nothing ever happened!" She's growing increasingly more hysterical and her words tumble faster and faster, her voice an angry squeak, "And then you let her be rude to me, and now you're mad at _me_ because I ignored her after she acted like my food was poison and was rude to Beckett and gram too!" There's more she's not saying but that is a valid point, and one he will address with Gina on Saturday.

"I didn't invite Gina here tonight, Alexis," his daughter snorts in disbelief, "I think it surprised her to see Beckett here, and she did not react very nicely, but-"

"Beckett was put on the spot too!" she rushes to the detective's defense, "_She_ didn't act like a spoiled brat!" _Mine._

"Beckett also doesn't have a long history of being the outsider in this family."

"She doesn't want to make you choose!" Alexis blurts it out angrily, her pale face going red with anger and embarrassment. Huh?

"What?" Castle asks, his mind spinning with the possibilities of what that statement might mean.

"She doesn't want you to choose between her and us," her voice shakes. "Gina always has. She wants you all to herself and gram and I are just annoying accessories. Beckett likes us. She obviously likes you," he starts to protest and his daughter gives him a withering look clearly beamed straight from her grandmother. "What, you think it's not obvious? She practically got in a catfight with Gina." Alexis' lips curl into a satisfied smile that unnerves him. It's as if she enjoyed it, as if she's proud of Beckett. "And she won."

She did? Beckett didn't even say anything. Just quietly kept her position at the table, refusing to move... just as she does in interrogation when a suspect won't budge. Sometimes she badgers; sometimes she yells; sometimes she plays good cop and gets them to think she's on their side. But her most lethal method is the quietest. She hunkers down and waits them out, picks them apart piece by damaged piece with her icy glare and silent, predatory posture; she intimidates them without the lift of a finger until they roll.

The last horse crosses the finish line as Castle realizes the truth in Alexis' statement. She was deeply uncomfortable, but she stood her ground when she easily could have made an excuse to leave or at the very least distract herself with the meal or by talking with Martha or Alexis. With Alexis' entirely unsubtle manipulations, Martha's lack of rush to help Gina, and Castle's attempts to keep the situation from escalating, he failed to even consider what Beckett was doing. Now he wonders if she didn't turn her laser-light stare on the interrupting publisher, if that's part of why Gina couldn't wait to get out of there.

"Enough, Alexis," he sighs tiredly, "I will talk to Gina about being rude to you, but when you have occasion to see her, I expect you to not bait her. That little stunt with the Heat Wave scene was not fair. Not to any of us."

"Beckett thought-"

"Beckett does not need you to be her wingwoman!" Castle ejects firmly. He has to put his foot down or this will get further out of hand. "And I do not need you to play matchmaker. I am glad that you two get along so well. She's very important to me, and she cares about you a great deal, but you can't just decide that we should be what you want, just because you don't like how things are with Gina and me. Or with Beckett and me, for that matter." That's an understatement.

At last, Alexis drops her battle-stance, shrinking into herself in a way that makes her look years younger and very small. "I know, dad," she mumbles quietly, "I just want you to be happy, and her to be happy." Gina is conspicuously absent from that list of people whose happiness Alexis values at the moment, but this is the best concession he can hope for tonight. Let her anger cool and the disappointment fade.

Castle hauls himself onto his feet, shoulders and knees creaking a bit after this unending day. He wraps his daughter in his arms, letting her know all's forgiven. Privately, the truth in her words still eats at him and leaves him wondering again how his life got so far off track.

Alexis' thoughts are still those of a teenager, young and lacking understanding of the complexities of adult relationships. As she knows nothing of the real situation with Beckett, she can't possibly understand that it's just not that simple as being with who you want rather than who is safe and a viable option, nor does she understand that it's not as simple as being in love versus not being in love, when it comes to Gina.

But a treacherous part of his mind asks, _isn't it?_

* * *

A couple of days off mid-week (Captain's orders) does little for Castle's nerves. Beckett has not called and he finds himself uncertain again of where they stand, but her little claim to him was enough that he's reasonably sure she is not actively pushing him away at this point. He won't push her; she came to him in the archives, and she came to him after the dinner party from hell, and both times they have moved forward without significant conflict. It's only when he's pushed her that she's reacted badly and run. At some point he will have to, and it's likely to be ugly, but right now, he's content to let her come to him when she's ready.

When she calls Friday morning with a body run over by some BMXers, she is nearly back to her normal snap and snark with him, and between the case and the Great Pet Rat Panic of 2010, he is distracted entirely and pleasantly from his personal woes – detective and publisher varieties. Mercifully, the redheaded daughter variety seems to have blown over entirely, now that she has a bigger crisis to attend to than playing Parent Trap with him and Beckett. She trades that for Mouse Trap, a childhood favorite turned teenage catastrophe, though Martha is having none of it this time and it still makes no sense to her.

Friday night, he goes to bed quite alone, but happy enough with the case still churning in his mind. His date with Gina weighs heavily on the backburner, but what needs done must be done, and he feels a pre-emptive sense of relief at letting it go. Breaking up with Gina doesn't fix things with Beckett, nor does it get rid of Josh, or her issues, or his issues, but it does remove one significant obstacle and it will absolve his conscience for any further pursuit of Beckett. He hopes.

And then comes Saturday morning.

What began as a quick check-in with Beckett to follow up on the clue that wasn't there has turned into a city-wide emergency with the life of a child at stake.

In mere moments, the precinct erupts into activity. Like a well-oiled machine, the phone lines light up, the proper authorities are notified, and every member of the NYPD from the lowliest uniform to each captain is put on high alert, in search of the missing boy. As the members of the various departments begin to file into the bullpen in preparation for a briefing, he reflects solemnly.

Lightbulb Len Leavitt died 36 hours ago. They've already missed several key windows to find an abductee, and the all-important first 48 is rapidly approaching. Castle knows the statistics. A glance in his partner's direction is all he needs to know that their thoughts are the same.

Through the chaos, Castle sees the only thing that could make this case worse. Feds. He supposes that's only natural, as the 12th is the nerve center of the case and the detectives are already familiar with what details are known, but he's not happy. Neither, from the sound of it, is Montgomery. That's interesting. Montgomery is usually all about inter-agency cooperation, and famous for his unusual disinterest in playing Jurisdiction Friction with Feds.

He glances around to spot Beckett across the room, answering some rookie's questions with the patience of a saint (she must have developed it when dealing with him and all his questions on procedure). Captain Montgomery stands toward the edge of the crowd, near the stairwell, and he's reading someone the riot act already. Intrigued, he weasels closer to eavesdrop on the Captain's tirade to a young Fed-ette with a ponytail and a clipboard.

"I don't care if you bring the U.S. military in here as backup!" the Captain's normally jovial tone is gone, replaced by something hard and remnant of an angry father. "Agent Sorenson will not set foot in my precinct!"

Now he _really_ sounds like a protective father. Given what Ryan hinted at of Beckett and Sorenson's history, and the tendency for cases to go haywire where the agent is involved, he is unsurprised.

"You bring whoever else you need to in, but you do not step on the toes of _my_ detectives, you do not pinch _my_ consultant or in any way interfere with his work on this case -" woah, Montgomery, defending him? Castle is flattered "-and for no reason do you bring in ANYONE who will disrupt the work of my team."

"But Sir, Agent Sorenson has handled-"

Captain Montgomery's voice is quiet rage, barely above a hiss, but enunciated sharply enough to cleave the young agent in twain, "I don't care if Agent Sorenson is screaming the house down out there. Your presence is required only to assure coordination of resources IF this has to go outside city jurisdiction." Montgomery pauses, and Castle listens with his back to the conversation, pretending to blend into the crowd. "Do I make myself clear, Agent Dixon?"

"Crystal, Sir," the young agent – 25, 26 at the most – sounds terrified, "I'll tell my supervisor, Sir."

"Good," Montgomery barks, dismissing Dixon with a wave of his hand, to which the young woman quickly scurries off. "Castle!"

He whirls around and schools his face into surprise, as if he's been busy this whole time.

"I need you and Beckett on the case until further notice," that was a given. Coffee provided, they will work for days if need be. "And I need you to do something for me." Castle listens, intrigued and ready to obey any and all orders, for once in his life. "Agent Sorenson is trying to get onto this case. I can't have him distracting Beckett, or getting in a pissing contest with you, or worse, sending her into some kind of state. If you see him skulking around here, you call me and I will have him taken out of this precinct. We're not playing with this kid's life and I don't want this case," _or Beckett,_ he hears, "compromised. She hears none of this."

"Yes, Sir," Castle agrees soberly. Captain Montgomery regards him with an assessing look, and then claps him on the shoulder, giving him a friendly shove back to the fray and implying that now would be a good time to distract Beckett.

He intends on doing just that, but is given a new task instead. Beckett's in war mode, and is plainly distracted without his input. She addresses him brusquely.

"Castle, I need you to go get Ryan from Tech. Esposito's canvassing Central Park, and we need Ryan back up here to keep us in the loop with the geek squad."

Castle hurries off to do just that. Moving quickly down the stairs to the second floor, he nearly runs straight into the enemy at the gate.

"Son of a bitch," he growls. "Why are you here?" Castle demands shortly as he looms over the slighter man, his patience completely gone. He knows damn well why, he just needs a time-stall to figure out what to do.

"Mr. Castle," Agent Sorenson smirks. "I see you've managed to hold on to your… position with this department."

"Agent Sorenson. I see you've managed to slither your way in here against my Captain's orders."

The reptilian curl of the other man's lips reminds Castle distinctly of the alligators at the zoo waiting to be thrown chunks of rotting flesh. "Where's Beckett? I need to see the detective in charge."

Castle only begins to balk before inspiration strikes. He halts mid-objection and struggles to keep his own devious smile under control.

"Alright, your funeral," he shrugs. Sorenson seems surprised with this cooperation, but not suspicious. No one ever accused the Feds of being imaginative, after all. Leading the way, Castle turns them down the stairs. "She's getting briefed by Tech, you just missed passing her," Castle baits, and Sorenson falls hook, line and sinker. Following an annoyingly-close pace behind, the agent suspects nothing until they enter the computer-lined terminal and Beckett is notably absent. He kicks the door closed.

"Delivery from Fed-Ex," Castle announces smoothly to Ryan, whose face has gone five shades of Fighting-Irish furious on mere sight of the agent.

"Wrong address," Ryan appears at his side and finishes, as they corner the agent. Castle dials Montgomery, speaks only long enough to inform him of the situation, and then turns his full attention back to the worthy show of watching Sorenson squirm.

It's the 3-minute highlight of his day from hell, and the finale is every bit as worth it as he thought it was going to be, as Montgomery hurries in to spirit the sour-looking Sorenson away with a none-too-gentle grip on the agent's shoulder and venom promises to inform his supervisor in the FBI of this, oh-yes-he-will.

Sorenson can't keep his mouth shut. "What, you still can't close the deal with Beckett, so you bring your bulldog in to remove competition?"

An elbow jabs Sorenson – hard – in the side and he nearly loses his balance when Montgomery's boot connects with the back of his shin.

"Either of you see that?" the Captain asks.

"See what?" He and Ryan answer in unison, a wry grin on Ryan's face.

"Good." And they are gone.

With that problem taken care of and some serious catharsis in watching Sorenson get knocked down a peg, he and Ryan are finally free to continue working the case, and Beckett none-the-wiser. Castle feels like the vindicated schoolboy who's watched the bully get marched to the principal's office. It buoys his mood all the way back up the stairs, until the gravity of the case sets in again.

Beckett begins her briefing the moment they arrive and settle amongst the crowd.

"We don't know his name or age, but we're estimating ten to twelve years old," Beckett begins, taking the air of a lieutenant directing her soldiers.

Montgomery returns just moments later with a surreptitious wink in Castle's direction that informs him that their old friend has been dealt with and is apt to be none-too-happy right now. That problem taken care of, he redoubles his focus and throws himself headfirst into the case. If that boy isn't found alive…

* * *

The sliver of blue-yellow light draws them in to where Tyler is almost certainly being held. Castle holds his breath as they slink softly across the tracks.

Gun cocked, she glances to the light under the door, and he knows what she wants. Removing his mobile from his pocket, he crouches down, angling the camera into the room. Hopefully they'll have…

Eureka.

No.

"One armed, and the kid," Beckett breathes dejectedly. "If I go in, he'll kill him before I get a shot off."

_Or he'll kill you,_ Castle thinks, dismayed and desperate for an alternative that will allow her to stay safe and give them the chance to get Tyler out alive. He doesn't know that he could live with any outcome aside from that. He could write a hundred Disney fairy-tale endings to this, but none of them are any more likely than the ones churned out by Hollywood.

Grasping at straws, he remembers that Montgomery has the whole station surrounded.

"He's holding a flashlight. If we kill the ambient light, he'll light up like a Christmas tree." Shit. Calling Montgomery and getting him to shut the station down would take too long. If only… "We just—"

As if guided by Lightbulb Len himself, Castle spies the power box at the exact moment Beckett does, doesn't even have to look at her to know they're thinking the same thing, that they're feeling the same tiny flicker of hope.

"It's like it's meant to be."

* * *

He doesn't remember pulling the switch. He remembers the last look she gives him, the quiet acknowledgement of everything left unsaid. He remembers a prayer to a god he could never quite believe in that she comes back to him, that they have another chance to get it right, and then wondering how many do-overs they're going to get, because they can't seem to stop screwing up. He remembers the shots that ring in the dark, and the worst moment of his life when he calls for her and hears no response save for the panicked scream of a boy.

* * *

_Thank you to all who are still reading & reviewing this story. I appreciate it very much._


	15. Chapter 14

_Night and Day_

* * *

She just needs to make sure he's okay.

They deposit Tyler with his waiting father and that ordeal is over, the city's collective held breath exhaled. They've been given this one. Just this once, the happy ending they're always too afraid to believe in completely is theirs. They won this time. They weren't too late. Lightbulb Len was the only casualty, and if you have to die, Kate thinks she might take a leaf from Castle's book and say it was a rather fantastic way to go; photographing one's own murder and managing to prevent another one in the process.

Castle, however, is still visibly shaken, and if she's honest, she is too.

He wasn't even shot at. But he hovers at her side, a warm and unimposing presence even for all his closeness. He conspicuously takes inventory of her, and she just knows; he needs to be sure, too. There's not a discussion at all between them during the walk from the bullpen to the parking lot. He follows her unquestioningly, slips into his spot in the cruiser and squirms at the unwelcome greeting of the loose spring.

His phone rings. Grimacing irritably, he pulls the device out. The inhale of his breath tells her exactly who it is.

"Gina," Castle intones impartially, and Beckett feels every bit as trapped here in _her_ car with him, miles away from wherever the publisher is, as she did at dinner some nights before. He's here with her, though. He's coming home with her. He's not leaving yet.

She can hear Gina's muffled voice, not enough to make out whole words, but just enough to get the gist. It's not pleasant. Castle's face drains pale.

"I was at work!" he hisses, as if keeping his voice quiet would make the conversation private when he's 18 inches away from her in the confines of a car. "No – no, you don't understand. There was a kidn-" he's cut off, and Kate steals a glance at him. His profile is sour and the lines of his face hard and angry, rather than guilty or worried. "I don't care!" Castle roars in a way that makes even Beckett jump slightly, "choice between a lunch-date and a child's life, _Gina_. I'm not free all the time any more, and sometimes work takes precedence. You should know all about that," now _that's_ bitter.

Not for the first time, she wonders just how much of a relationship they ever had. He's dropped unsubtle hints, once calling their partnership the most sexless relationship he'd ever been in… next to the one with Gina.

She wonders just why he stayed so long. There's obviously a working relationship that, well, works. But six years? Alexis' behavior at dinner the other night speaks to years of tension, of fighting and dysfunction so commonplace that it was normal. She has a hard time envisioning Castle allowing that around little Alexis. He's overprotective now; she can only imagine he was worse when she was smaller. What was it about Gina that he kept going back to, if all they do is fight when they're together?

But then, they fight too. They snap and snipe all day long, and it works. It's not like him and Gina. It's _not._ There's a tiredness to his fights with her, from what she's witnessed in person and through snippets of phone conversations. A resignation, an undertone of exhaustion. Not like what they have. Not underlined with playful fire and a desire to push each other to be better while pushing buttons, not designed to alleviate the tensions of a hard job and a sometimes joyless life.

"I don't care," he resigns tiredly, her tirade on the other end apparently over. Castle pinches the bridge of his nose, "no, I need to – no. I said _no_. I'll call you tomorrow." –- "_Goodbye_, Gina," he finishes forcefully. She pretends not to see him browse through his phone to mute her ringtone.

Beckett says nothing. She's not sure there's anything appropriate to say when your partner's relationship is crumbling and you're secretly happy about it. She tells herself it's not for purely selfish reasons – she genuinely does want him to be happy, and it's pretty clear that Gina doesn't make him happy – but it doesn't help with the guilty conscience. Schadenfreude, even at Gina's expense and to Castle's benefit, is a deeply unattractive quality.

The brush of the back of his knuckles along the side of her arm as they breeze through traffic sends an unanticipated shiver through her, has her instantly thinking of their first morning together. The now-innocent action loaded with the touch-memory of the same knuckles grazing the pale skin of her thigh. The power and capacity to do so much damage contained in the bony protrusions, turned tender and excruciatingly kind wherever she's concerned.

As if on their own volition, her slender digits curl around the back of his hand, dropping it to the console between them, and they do not move until she's pulled into her parking garage. Once outside the car, Castle catches up to her on the driver's side, reclaiming her hand for the short walk to her building. It's surreal. The street teems with people at all hours, all rushing past unnoticing of their clasped fingers, as if they could be just anyone. As if they are just any other couple.

It's a bit of a thrill. Holding his hand in public, yes. But also the thought of getting away with it. She doesn't like how much she likes that.

He holds her own door open for her, lets her in ahead of him, closes and locks it behind them. There's no discussion of what's going to happen, because they both know it, don't need to agree on it or justify it just yet.

She thought it'd be explosive. That the tension would boil over again, that they'd tear at each other the moment the door clicked shut, that his acknowledgement of letting her back would result in immediate consummation. She was mistaken.

He just needs to make sure she's okay.

Not even sure how they got there, she's pushed lazily backwards into the bedroom she's traded for the couch and not slept in since it all went wrong. He leads her in, reaching for her only when the door closes, needless as the action is, with no one else around to walk in. She relaxes into his hold, restraining and firmly in control, just the way she likes it. He won't break their embrace, removing her coat to pool on the floor and letting her toe off her boots while she makes quick work of his shirt, unbuttoning what she can and pushing his shirt and jacket off with one swipe, discarded one arm at a time so he can keep holding her, spinning her around for inspection. Chilled hands warm on unclothed skin, their touches kept light, meant only to reassure, only to check for injury or change.

The last time here doesn't matter. She doesn't want to think about it. Doesn't want to think about how he rejected her and walked out. Maybe he'll stay this time. If she can behave, if she can remember what to say, how to act when it's all over, maybe he'll stay.

She steps backward blindly, her eyes closed in relief, release of all the day's emotion and fear, though not of the nagging suspicion that she made another twisting mistake with what wasn't said before he threw the switch and she charged into the darkened room in the subway. Things she doesn't – couldn't possibly – mean, but which sit bitter on the tip of her tongue now hours later.

It's a normal reaction, she tells herself. It's a response to intense stress. She had to shoot a suspect involved in a child hostage. It shook her. It shook him. They need to be sure they're still okay. Nothing more.

The first kiss washes over her, a half-sigh of relief passing unremarked upon from his mouth to hers. She takes his tongue and taste eagerly while elsewhere, he removes the last of her clothing and her naked backside hits the bed, his knees resting either side of her. This is what she needed, and all she needed. He's fine. She's fine. They're fine. He'll still come to her. Still wants her. It's the first time she's felt connected to anything since the last time they were here and it all went wrong again. Maybe this time is different. Maybe.

Without ceremony, he divests himself of his trousers, pulling her to his chest, cuddled to him with adoration she can hardly stand. As his hands roam over her, she feels so good, so incredibly good like this. Thermal and insistent and savoring and so very warm and she needs more, endless more.

"Touch me," she pleads, not caring how desperate it sounds, "please..."

He's eager, no hesitations this time, no heartbreaking are-you-sures. No nerve-wracking show-me-what-you-wants. He knows now. He must.

An exclamation of pure pleasure escapes her when both hands divert to her thighs, moving his velvet lips away from hers to brush over her breast before taking a stiffened nipple in his warm, wet mouth. A rough graze of his teeth contrasts to the lightest of attentions, soft remembered stroking of knuckles on her inner-thigh and the fluttering traces of his fingertips through the dampness between her legs as a less acceptable dampness fills her eyes. They're fine. She doesn't understand this. Doesn't want to – can't – consider the possibilities right now.

Stop thinking. Just feel.

Two digits penetrate her without preamble and she buckles over, his satisfied moan a match to her breathy sigh of relief, the physical sensation quieting all the voices in her mind. Thumb spreading wetness over her and circling her nerves, he thrusts his fingers, and his other hand slips up her stomach to replace his mouth at her breasts.

"Castle..." she doesn't know what she's about to say and mercifully, she doesn't have to find out. He takes her breathless call for him to heart, tongue stroking into her mouth immediately, passing a secret to hers, swallowed but as yet undigested.

Talented fingers curl up in her and circling strokes come faster, faster still until she's spiraling down, down, down into the world of dark and senseless pleasure. Mouth dropping from his, she rests her head against his shoulder, pleading and arching into his broad chest, sandwiching her now-wet breasts between them to slide deliciously against his skin, clutching his biceps for stability. Closer, closer, closer, yes, yes, _there_, _Castle_- "Castle!"

Her body surges into his, as if trying to fuse with the man who holds her tight, hissing filthy encouragements in her ear as she finds her release on his hand. Quaking and panting heavily, she rides it out. Castle recaptures her lips, searching for territory explored in the ridge of her mouth, rewarding her with a moan of his own when she's unable to quell a short, sharp scream as he strikes the spot deep inside her and the final piece of the world that exists beyond their bodies falls away. It leaves with it only them, only the connection they both so desperately needed, only the two syllables of his name and the way they taste as she prays it against his lips.

She's missed him. Missed this. One regrettable night and one beautiful morning-after were not enough. She was a fool to think it would be, to think she could have given him his fantasy come to life (and hers) and that their appetites would be satiated. But appetite is one thing; longing, an entirely different illness. Longing, she did not count on. Missing him, being distressed at his absence, is an unintended side-affect. The only cure seems to be more of the source of the problem. A vicious cycle she's not sure she wants to break.

Displacing her momentarily, Castle shows impressive grace at kicking his boxers and trousers off, replacing her presence in his lap again immediately.

"I missed you," he murmurs, as if they share a brain again. Dragging his fingers between her thighs, wet with release, the writer brings his thick digits to his mouth, sucking for a few beats, watching her the entire time. Kate moans, the hazy visual alone bringing her close again.

"I missed you, too. So- much, Castle, so m-" it's more than she intended to concede, and she can't seem to stop making it worse, "so much. Don't le..." But that makes him stop, and she doesn't like it when he stops.

His hard length throbs hotly against her thigh, and now she's got enough control to move, uncoordinated in her afterglow but still able. She takes him in hand, trying to remember how he likes to be touched. The answering groan when she twists her palm lightly satisfies her that he's sufficiently distracted, back to focusing on just this.

Unsteadily, he pries her away from him, pinning her by her wrists and taking a moment to look her over again, her skin jumping under his mere gaze, body still at ends. When it goes on too long, when she can't take the scrutiny and can't shake the feeling that maybe he'll see something ugly in her – inside or out – if he looks too hard, she squirms, trying to escape his assessment.

"Please," she congratulates herself on keeping the whining from her voice, "I want to feel you, please, Castle; inside..."

And he gives in. Her eyes roll back when he fills her, thick and hot and perfect, their connection intense enough to force the rest of the world from existence again. Here, they're perfect, and nothing else and no one else exists. She clings to him, wrenching her hands away from his grip to clasp at his shoulders, pull him down onto her as her ankles hook together, pressing into his back.

Bucking up into him gets her nowhere. He flips them, bringing her on top, and plants his hands on her hips and forces her to still, to allow him to grind upwards, drag in and out of her at his leisurely pace. Kate's eyes slide closed, her body clenching and shuddering around him. A particularly sharp collision of their hips doubles her over, brings her chest colliding with his, fingers digging into his shoulders and biceps as each thrust jolts her body and the slide of her nipples against his chest provides another layer of pleasure.

His harsh grip on her turns tender, caressing the column of her spine, bringing her closer still to kiss her, lazy and slow, like they've all the time in the world. It's a delicious contrast to the quickened pace of their bodies' joining, the rhythm all kinds of off but in the moment, she doesn't care in the least and by the growls and groans he's releasing into her mouth, Castle doesn't either. Her body contracts around him, pushing them both close to the edge.

"Castle," she exhales, completely lost in the moment on the edge of blissful nothingness, "Castle," her vocabulary narrowed down to his name, it's the only thing she can say.

"I'm here," he moans, grasping one of her hands, guiding her fingers to where they're joined, the wet, white-hot fusion of him into her. "Not going anywhere, Kate- right- Oh!" Castle's exclamation fades into a low rumble, a starving call of her name, "Kate," she can't hold back any more. Fingers brushing him every time he pistons into her, it only heightens the moment, the needed reassurance that they're alive and got another chance. Even though they can't seem to stop screwing up, it's another chance. And he's here, looking up at her like she's everything in this moment. He hasn't left; they haven't imploded.

"Let go, Kate, come on, come on," he chants, she can't take it any more and smashes her mouth to his, teeth grazing slightly in a way that should be awkward but fuck, it's not, it's just hot.

The push of his tongue to wind its way around hers is what she needs to send her over the edge, chasing oblivion and finding it in the way he holds her to him so snugly; the way he takes over because she just can't do anything but feel; the way his kiss mimics the movement of their bodies. Her eyes squeeze shut so tightly, she sees a thousand little stars, bursts of them each time he hits her deepest spot, each time their joined fingers run over her nerves.

Lightning races through her, kept on high while he haphazardly jerks his hips into her, groaning each time her body spasms around him. She's reduced to breathy cries interrupted only by gasps for precious air as he finds his release, a low howl and a slew of unintelligible words drawn out of him.

The crackles of pleasure, muffled but still heavy with electricity still rage through her while they come down, delectable aftershocks shivering through her, passed to him, passed back to her. Propping himself on one well-sculpted arm, Castle shifts them halfway to their sides, keeping them connected as long as possible. It's unexpected and tender, the way he gathers her hair and pushes it to the side before idly stroking the skin of her back. She doesn't know what to do. Doesn't have a reference point for this. But he sighs his appreciation at the formless shapes she scribbles across the plane of his chest, and it seems like she's doing okay. There's a slowness to it that nearly aches, and relief in the same breath.

She's still occasionally shaking and doesn't understand.

"Do you want me to go?" he asks after a while, and she seizes up. She's not sure if he's asking permission to stay or looking for an excuse to leave. Her heart clenches. If he wants to go she's not going to beg him to stay. Part of her wants to, but it's not dignified. It's not her. It's weak and unnecessary. She can take care of herself, after all. Doesn't need Castle here to protect her with his wit and charm.

Finally, she responds, a carefully-selected statement of no minced words. "If you'd like."

Beckett can feel him looking her over, searching for some kind of indication of what she means, but she can't look at him, can't-

Castle cups her jaw, slow-circling strokes of his thumb soothing her in contradiction to his firm grip, the one that forces her to look at what little she can see of his face in the remnant streetlight.

"Do _you_ want me to go?" And something harder and more determined than she usually remembers he has in him comes out in his tone, something that compels her to give up her secrets like a suspect breaking under interrogation. She wants to say yes, go, go and stop making her say what she means, stop making this deception of theirs too much about truth. But she's incapable of lying right now and a little part of her hates him for that.

"No," the answer tumbles out, sloppy and more broken than she's especially proud of.

But it's the truth, and he recognizes it. A warm smile, devoid of arrogance or guile finds its way across his swollen mouth, she can hardly make it out in the darkness but it's infectious, and she returns it shyly, involuntarily.

"Okay," Castle says after a while, shifting them again so that she can lay by his side. Absently, she pulls a sheet and blanket over them before her arms come to fold onto his chest and she rests her chin on their cross, studying his face. "I do have to go home early," he sighs, the hand he has draped across her back squeezing her a little, "I need to see Alexis in the morning, and see how the rat thing is going. But I'll stay as long as I can."

And at that, Kate smiles again. She'd never begrudge him his family, knows the strain this way of life can take on that. But if he can stay a while and still be the father and son he wants to be – that she knows he is, that she very much likes about him – she finds herself strangely thrilled with just that. "'Kay," she says, snuggling contentedly, her eyes growing a bit heavy even though her mind isn't ready to sleep yet. "So Alexis is upset because she lost her boyfriend's pet?"

A tension from Castle's body relents, and he resumes petting her again before answering. "Yeah. She's gone a little overboard with it. You know her," he remarks offhandedly, "she couldn't half-ass anything if her life depended on it. So my house has been turned into a life-size game of Mousetrap. She thinks that he'll hate her because of this."

"That's silly," she yawns tiredly, snuggling closer to her partner, "Alexis is a wonderful person. Her boyfriend knows that if he cares enough to trust her with his pet. He's not going to hate her over this. I mean, upset, yeah, but he'd be crazy to hate her..."

"Yeah," Castle remarks quietly, his own voice growing tired and faint with impending sleep, the exhaustion of the case and the stress and the fear and the relief catching up with him, "but she's learning. Hopefully, he doesn't teach her the wrong lesson."

She nods her agreement. In the moments before sleep overtakes her, dragging her into warm and pleasantly dreamless dark, she doesn't fully consider what wrong lesson his daughter could possibly be taught by this boy, that he's so anxious to avoid her learning.

* * *

_So sorry for the length between updates – getting married, starting another job, freaking out about said job, and trying to eke out time to write/type all in a two-week span is a balancing act I find I'm not good at – but I hope this chapter proved enjoyable. If late._

_Thank you to all readers and especially to those who've left reviews. It means a lot and I appreciate every one, even the guest reviews I can't respond to._


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